Egyptian youth represent 23.6% of the total population, around 20.7m, and around 26.3% of those youth suffer unemployment, while 51.2% suffer poverty, according to a 2015 report that was issued by the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS) on Tuesday.
Youth close to the poverty line amount to 27.8%, while those under poverty line comprise 24.1% of their total.
In 2014, the youth unemployment rate reached approximately 29%, while those in poverty stood at 50%. The number of Egyptians leaving the country increased by 17% in 2014 compared to the preceding year. The migrating youth cited unemployment as the main reason for migration.
Youth make up around 52% of Egypt’s labour force, with males representing 72.3% of the figure and females representing some 33%. Females, however, are more successful at obtaining permanent jobs, constituting around 70.8% of the young Egyptians who have permanent jobs.
“The proportion of subscribers in the social insurance services has reached 32.3%,” the CAPMAS report said. “The percentage of beneficiaries from the health insurance is 22.2%.”
At the beginning of this year, the government developed a national training plan to encourage employment as part of its efforts to reduce unemployment. The plan seeks to eliminate the unemployment problems associated with over three million individuals, almost 13.1% of the labour force.
The plan aims to provide 2 million people with jobs. Around 170,000 jobs were provided throughout 2014, of which 70% were filled, Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb said, noting that the goal is to increase the number of these opportunities by 25% during each stage.
In May, Minister of Local Development Adel Labib announced that his ministry has approved over 1,000 projects in one month under the national initiative for community, human and local development, entitled “Your Project” (Mashrou’ak), with EGP 34m in investments.
The first phase of the project was launched in mid-March, with approximately EGP 3bn worth of investments, and included 11 governorates, such Giza, Upper Egypt and border governorates. The second phase was launched at the end of May.
CAPMAS released its report on occasion of the World Youth Day. In the report, youth are characterised as Egyptians whose ages range between 18 and 29. Males represent 51.1% of Egyptian youth while females represent the remaining 48.9%.
