The Ministry of Planning and Economy publishes a report on the employment goals of the plan for the current financial year 23/2024

 The Ministry of Planning and Economic Affairs has published a report on the employment targets of the financial year plan 23/2024. 

 

 H.E. Dr. Hala H. El-Said, Egypt's Minister of Planning and Economic Development, explained that a comprehensive approach to the problem of unemployment should not be limited to reducing the absolute number of unemployed, but should extend to addressing the entire structural imbalance and characteristics of unemployment, such as the inability of the labor market to accommodate all job-seeking groups and rising unemployment rates. 

 

 El-Said added that due to these challenges, the quantitative goals of the 2023/2024 plan crystallized to provide about 800,000 new job opportunities, increasing the labor force to about 29.1 million people. 

 The number of unemployed is stable at 2.4 million, which is 7.6% of the total labor force, and in addition, the contribution rate of women has increased from 16% to approximately 25% of the total number of employees.

 

 The goal is also to reduce the qualitative differences in unemployment rates by lowering the unemployment rate of university graduates (from 46.2 percent to 36 percent).

 

Additionally, the plan aims to reduce the difference between urban and rural unemployment, so that it does not exceed five percentage points.

It also aims to lower youth unemployment in the age group (15-19 years) to 60 percent. the total number of unemployed instead of 63 percent. 

 

 

 Regarding the sectoral distribution of new job opportunities created in the plan year, El-Said noted that among the new job opportunities, the leading labor-intensive industries, i.e., agriculture, construction, wholesale, and retail trade. 

 

 

 Similarly, the human and social development sectors are expected to account for approximately 14% of the plan, and the distribution of sectors was estimated based on the relative distribution of workers in the Labor Bulletin of the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMS) (Q4 2022). 

 

 The Ministry's report on the development of employment and unemployment indicators stated that according to the results of the fourth quarter (October/December 2022) of the labor force survey, the labor force reached approximately 30.3 million people. 

 

 The report also stated that the number of employed people was about 28.2 million people, which means that the number of unemployed fell to about 2.18 million people 

The recent Labor Force Research Bulletin reports that unemployment rates continue to decline to 7.1 in the first quarter of 2023, with the number of unemployed people reaching about 2.17 million individuals. Given the development of unemployment rates over the period (12/2013 - 22/2023), statistics show a decreasing trend for this. The rates reached their lowest level, which was 7.5% in 18/2019, before rising again to a record 9.6% in 2019/2020, affected by the repercussions of Covid-19.

 According to the plan’s estimates, the unemployment rate is expected to reach 7.2% in 2022/23.

As for the plan’s estimates of unemployment rates over the period (23/2024 - 25/2026), it is expected to rise to 7.6% in the year of the plan against the backdrop of the expected economic growth rate for the same year is limited to 4.1%, provided that it resumes its decreasing trend as the growth rate increases. The economy broke the 7% barrier, recording 6.9% by the end of the plan in 2025/26.

About indicators of population and labor force development during the period (18/2019 - 21/2022), the plan's expectations for the year 22/2023, and its estimates for the years of the period (23/2024 - 25/2026) in light of the growth rates of both. The report explained that the meaning of this relationship is the gradual increase in rates of contribution to economic activity from 28.4% starting in the year 2019/18 to 29.7% at the end of the medium-term plan (25/2026).

The report indicated that it reviewed the development of the relationship between the labor force and the employed and unemployed during the period extending from the year (18/2019) until the end of the medium-term plan in the year 25/2026, and the corresponding position in the plan for the year 23/2024.

  The numbers indicate that the number of employed people is expected to reach 29.1 million individuals in the year of the plan, and the number will rise to 30.9 million individuals at its end.

This corresponds to a decline in the number of unemployed people to 2.4 million and then to 2.3 million individuals, respectively, resulting in a decrease in the unemployment rate from 7.6% to 6.9%, as previously mentioned.