While the global economy seems to have found slightly more steady footing, and has shown some signs of tentative growth, it is not enough for the hundreds of thousands of unemployed youth facing challenges of basic survival every day. In lesser developed countries, a young woman between the ages of 16 to 25 will enter the workforce with no skills and little to no education; if she is able to avoid pregnancy (a scenario that will almost certainly force her to drop out of the formal economy without maternal support programs), she will find herself in a maze of confused communications between the public and private sector. If she is able to find a job in that maze, the chances are high it will be a low quality one, as growth has stagnated for good quality jobs that offer benefits, decent pay, and stability.
While the global economy seems to have found slightly more steady footing, and has shown some signs of tentative growth, it is not enough for the hundreds of thousands of unemployed youth facing challenges of basic survival every day. In lesser developed countries, a young woman between the ages of 16 to 25 will enter the workforce with no skills and little to no education; if she is able to avoid pregnancy (a scenario that will almost certainly force her to drop out of the formal economy without maternal support programs), she will find herself in a maze of confused communications between the public and private sector. If she is able to find a job in that maze, the chances are high it will be a low quality one, as growth has stagnated for good quality jobs that offer benefits, decent pay, and stability.
“Generation Jobless,” Guy Ryder, Director-General of the International Labour Organization, argued at a panel in New York City in September 2013, may already be a lost cause. The United Nations’ push for the post-2015 goals will come too late for many under the age of 25, a group that makes up a staggering 43 percent of the world’s population. The Millennium Development Goals had two flaws: no focus on global employment and increasing quality jobs and an emphasis on quantity over quality. These mistakes cannot be repeated.
North Africa, thrown into political and economic chaos just three years ago with Arab Spring revolutions in Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt, still faces the challenges brought about by the upheavals. Egypt’s Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) reported in December 2012, youth aged 20 to 24 face an unemployment rate of 39 percent; among women of the same age group, that number skyrockets to 60.5 percent. When these statistics are expanded to include those who have dropped out of the job search, the numbers are even worse. In 2009, the Human Development Report estimated that joblessness for Egyptians aged 15 to 29 reached 60 percent. With two-thirds of the nation’s youth without either a job or school to go to, not only is the political instability of the past few years better understood, but it should raise large warning flags in any plans for Egypt’s future.
Egyptian youth are generally handling this in one of several ways. First, they are joining the informal economy in droves. In this job sector, youth very often have no social or legal protections. Work in the informal sector blocks access to health insurance or social protections when they are injured or ill; when they reach retirement, if they have remained in the informal sector, they will have lost access to social security benefits. A 2012 report by the International Labour Organization found that 51.2 percent of non-agricultural employment falls within the informal economy. A survey done by the Population Council and the Information Decision Support Center found that only 15.7 percent of young workers have a contract signed with their employer, and only 14.8 percent have social insurance benefits.
Frustrated youth looking for stable jobs turn their hopes to the government, which since the 1960s has consistently offered better pay and benefits than the majority of private sector jobs. In an interview with The Cairo Review of Global Affairs, Amr Hamid stated that his dream job was to work in government, which would offer a fixed salary, a pension, vacation days, and health insurance. Without these benefits, he explained, he would not be able to get married and start a family. However, Amr is not alone in his dream—thousands of people vie for these positions, making any government job nearly impossible to get without personal connections. As youth are cut off from being able to access one of the only good jobs available, they perceive government corruption as being the source of their troubles.
Other Egyptians are choosing to simply leave. Arab nations have traditionally been the main destination for Egyptian workers—making Egypt the 14th highest receiver of remittances—but as countries like Saudi Arabia begin to turn more to Asian countries for low skilled workers, migrants have turned their sights to Europe. Highly skilled or educated youth have an easier time making the move to Europe due to restrictive immigration policies, creating a ‘brain drain’ effect in Egypt. The European Union has begun to consider Mobility Partnerships with MENA nations to allow for better integration of workers and exchange of skilled laborers; however, only Morocco has an established program so far.
The Egyptian Government realizes the lost potential of this jobless generation, and since the Revolution, has begun to focus specifically on projects targeting them. In a conversation with the Diplomatic Courier in New York City, Deputy Minister of Youth Khalid Tallima described the public-private partnerships the Egyptian government is seeking to foster in order to guide youth from school to employment. Working with an array of organizations—from NGOs to domestic businesses to MNCs like Samsung—Tallima said the long-term goal is to use these partnerships to improve education systems from grade school to university, encourage entrepreneurship, and bring reforms to the requirements for starting a business.
Despite the string of discouraging statistics, Tallima—a young man himself—was hopeful. He explained the number of advantages Egypt has that should attract foreign investment—natural resources and cheap energy—and seemed confident that when the workforce was provided with the skills needed to compete in a global economy, Egypt would prosper. The upcoming elections “will be a good start,” he said; most important, “the Egyptian people are not afraid anymore.”
This article was originally published in the Diplomatic Courier's January/February 2014 print edition.
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Egypt’s ‘Generation Jobless’
January 14, 2014
While the global economy seems to have found slightly more steady footing, and has shown some signs of tentative growth, it is not enough for the hundreds of thousands of unemployed youth facing challenges of basic survival every day. In lesser developed countries, a young woman between the ages of 16 to 25 will enter the workforce with no skills and little to no education; if she is able to avoid pregnancy (a scenario that will almost certainly force her to drop out of the formal economy without maternal support programs), she will find herself in a maze of confused communications between the public and private sector. If she is able to find a job in that maze, the chances are high it will be a low quality one, as growth has stagnated for good quality jobs that offer benefits, decent pay, and stability.
While the global economy seems to have found slightly more steady footing, and has shown some signs of tentative growth, it is not enough for the hundreds of thousands of unemployed youth facing challenges of basic survival every day. In lesser developed countries, a young woman between the ages of 16 to 25 will enter the workforce with no skills and little to no education; if she is able to avoid pregnancy (a scenario that will almost certainly force her to drop out of the formal economy without maternal support programs), she will find herself in a maze of confused communications between the public and private sector. If she is able to find a job in that maze, the chances are high it will be a low quality one, as growth has stagnated for good quality jobs that offer benefits, decent pay, and stability.
“Generation Jobless,” Guy Ryder, Director-General of the International Labour Organization, argued at a panel in New York City in September 2013, may already be a lost cause. The United Nations’ push for the post-2015 goals will come too late for many under the age of 25, a group that makes up a staggering 43 percent of the world’s population. The Millennium Development Goals had two flaws: no focus on global employment and increasing quality jobs and an emphasis on quantity over quality. These mistakes cannot be repeated.
North Africa, thrown into political and economic chaos just three years ago with Arab Spring revolutions in Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt, still faces the challenges brought about by the upheavals. Egypt’s Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) reported in December 2012, youth aged 20 to 24 face an unemployment rate of 39 percent; among women of the same age group, that number skyrockets to 60.5 percent. When these statistics are expanded to include those who have dropped out of the job search, the numbers are even worse. In 2009, the Human Development Report estimated that joblessness for Egyptians aged 15 to 29 reached 60 percent. With two-thirds of the nation’s youth without either a job or school to go to, not only is the political instability of the past few years better understood, but it should raise large warning flags in any plans for Egypt’s future.
Egyptian youth are generally handling this in one of several ways. First, they are joining the informal economy in droves. In this job sector, youth very often have no social or legal protections. Work in the informal sector blocks access to health insurance or social protections when they are injured or ill; when they reach retirement, if they have remained in the informal sector, they will have lost access to social security benefits. A 2012 report by the International Labour Organization found that 51.2 percent of non-agricultural employment falls within the informal economy. A survey done by the Population Council and the Information Decision Support Center found that only 15.7 percent of young workers have a contract signed with their employer, and only 14.8 percent have social insurance benefits.
Frustrated youth looking for stable jobs turn their hopes to the government, which since the 1960s has consistently offered better pay and benefits than the majority of private sector jobs. In an interview with The Cairo Review of Global Affairs, Amr Hamid stated that his dream job was to work in government, which would offer a fixed salary, a pension, vacation days, and health insurance. Without these benefits, he explained, he would not be able to get married and start a family. However, Amr is not alone in his dream—thousands of people vie for these positions, making any government job nearly impossible to get without personal connections. As youth are cut off from being able to access one of the only good jobs available, they perceive government corruption as being the source of their troubles.
Other Egyptians are choosing to simply leave. Arab nations have traditionally been the main destination for Egyptian workers—making Egypt the 14th highest receiver of remittances—but as countries like Saudi Arabia begin to turn more to Asian countries for low skilled workers, migrants have turned their sights to Europe. Highly skilled or educated youth have an easier time making the move to Europe due to restrictive immigration policies, creating a ‘brain drain’ effect in Egypt. The European Union has begun to consider Mobility Partnerships with MENA nations to allow for better integration of workers and exchange of skilled laborers; however, only Morocco has an established program so far.
The Egyptian Government realizes the lost potential of this jobless generation, and since the Revolution, has begun to focus specifically on projects targeting them. In a conversation with the Diplomatic Courier in New York City, Deputy Minister of Youth Khalid Tallima described the public-private partnerships the Egyptian government is seeking to foster in order to guide youth from school to employment. Working with an array of organizations—from NGOs to domestic businesses to MNCs like Samsung—Tallima said the long-term goal is to use these partnerships to improve education systems from grade school to university, encourage entrepreneurship, and bring reforms to the requirements for starting a business.
Despite the string of discouraging statistics, Tallima—a young man himself—was hopeful. He explained the number of advantages Egypt has that should attract foreign investment—natural resources and cheap energy—and seemed confident that when the workforce was provided with the skills needed to compete in a global economy, Egypt would prosper. The upcoming elections “will be a good start,” he said; most important, “the Egyptian people are not afraid anymore.”
This article was originally published in the Diplomatic Courier's January/February 2014 print edition.
