Working Papers

Labor Market Competitiveness and Flexibility in Egypt

No.

129

Date

October, 2001

Topic

J. Labor and Demographic Economics

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the structure and performance of the labor market in Egypt, in order to assess its competitiveness. The paper also considers issues related to labor market flexibility and labor market reforms. The study found that the labor market has been increasingly suffering from many distortions and disequilibria during the last two decades that affected its competitiveness. The study indicated that the collective impact of the legislative and institutional rules that control the labor market on the private sector profitability and hence, on job creation was minor.The paper concluded that the challenge of job creation could only be met through adopting a comprehensive strategy which aims at achieving a high labor intensive rate of growth, hand in hand with raising labor productivity and competitiveness.