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Wednesday, 16 February 2022

Unemployment falls slightly to 7.4%

Unemployment falls slightly in 4Q2021: Egypt's unemployment declined fractionally to 7.4% in 4Q2021 from 7.5% the previous quarter, according to the latest data from statistics agency CAPMAS (pdf). The rate is now up slightly from 7.2% in 4Q2020.

The jobless rate has remained more or less flat over the past year, with only mild fluctuations since spiking to a near-two-year high of 9.6% in 2Q2020 on the back of the lockdown and economic disruption that accompanied the pandemic.

This only includes people who are looking for work, though: The labor force participation rate — which counts everyone aged 15-64 either in work or actively looking for work — remained low in 4Q, edging up 0.1 percentage points to 43.8% from the previous quarter.

Youth unemployment increased: The number of 15-29 year-olds out of work accounted for 64.3% of all jobless people, up from last quarter’s 58.4%.

And unemployment among women remains a dark spot, rising to 17.8% from 15.3% in 3Q2021. In contrast, unemployment among men fell to 5.2% from 5.9% last quarter.

Job creation has slowed in the private sector: Employment has been falling in the private sector for three consecutive months, according to the latest PMI, with lower demand bringing stable backlogs and reduced workloads.

IN OTHER ECONOMY NEWS- State-owned enterprises will raise the minimum wage to EGP 2.7k for their workers as of 1 July, in line with the incoming wage hike for public sector workers, the cabinet announced in a statement. This is the first time that the public sector minimum wage has been applied to public enterprises, the statement read.

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