Policy Briefs
Is the Egyptian economy creating good jobs? A review of the evolution of the quantity and quality of employment in Egypt from 1998 to 2018
No.
45
Publisher
Economic Research Forum
Date
October, 2019
Topic
J. Labor and Demographic Economics
Key question:
- Has the economic recovery in Egypt resulted in more and better- quality jobs?
In a nutshell:
- Despite a recovery in economic growth, employment rates have not recovered since they began declining in 2011
- The informalization of employment has continued apace as public sector employment declines and formal private sector employment growth remains anemic
- Informalization of employment has hit the middle class particu- larly hard
- The rapid growth of the construction and transport industries has contributed to the growth of informal employment outside fixed establishments, which is one of the most vulnerable forms of employment to economic downturns
- Real wages have declined across the board and wage inequality has increased
- A silver lining is that the job security of informal workers has improved since the depth of the crisis in 2012
- Subjective reports of job satisfaction agree strongly with objec- tive employment conditions, with workers in the most vulnerable employment states being the least satisfied
- These most vulnerable workers are also the ones that express the greatest increases in job satisfaction from 2012 to 2018 as their job security improved
Research Fellows
Ragui Assaad
Professor and Freeman Chair for International Economic...