Egypt’s unemployment rate rises

Egypt’s official statistics agency CAPMAS (Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics) revealed on Tuesday that the national unemployment rate rose to 12.6 per cent in the second quarter of 2012 up comparing to the same period of time in 2011, when the rate was 11.8 per cent. The total number of unemployed Egyptians is now nearly 3.4 million people. More than a quarter of them have recently lost their jobs.

The unemployment rates for women are almost three times more than for men, with 24.1 per cent and 9.2 per cent respectively.

The situation with unemployment is more complicated in the urban areas than in the rural regions. The unemployment rate for the inhabitants of the cities is about 16.2 per cent and it did not change significantly since last year. The rates for the rural areas are 9.8 per cent. The situation looks better here, because the agricultural sector and the fishing are the main sources of work here and build almost the one third of the total labor force in those regions.

The percentage of unemployed people who previously had the work but have recently lost it is very high – 26.3 per cent, according to CAPMAS.

But the most depressing situation is with the unemployment of youth. 77.5 per cent of young Egyptians (from 15 to 29 years old) are currently unemployed, claims the statistic agency. The young people between 20 and 24 years old make 41.4 per cent, the rates for the people between 25 and 29 years old are 25.3 per cent. The young people with the high education recently graduated and holding university and higher degrees face the terrible and shocking problem of unemployment in today’s Egypt. Eight young people out of ten cannot find the work after graduation, and the rates of youth’s unemployment skyrocketed in this quarter of 2012.

The situation in the labor field significantly worsened after the events of January 25 Revolution, with many people losing their jobs, small business suffering and economic conditions deteriorating. It results in the extremely complicated problem of unemployment in Egypt which requires the immediate and decisive actions of the government.