Egypt’s Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) announced on Wednesday that the unemployment rate has dropped to 9.9 percent during the second quarter of 2018.
CAPMAS said that the unemployment rate was 10.6 percent during the first quarter of this year, and that it has now dropped by 0.7 percent compared to the first quarter, and by 2.1 percent compared to the same quarter last year.
The statistics were released as part of results of the Labor Force Survey for the second quarter (April-June) of 2018. The agency indicated that the second quarter saw a decline in the labor force and the number of unemployed, with an increase in the number of employees, which indicated the seasonality of employment.
According to CAPMAS, the size of the labor force reached 29.036 million people (22.665 million males, 6.371 million females), a decrease of 150,000 people by 0.5 percent compared to the first quarter of 2018 due to seasonal work and a decline of 147,000 by 0.5 percent over the same quarter of the previous year.
The number of unemployed reached 2.875 million (1.527 million males, 1.348 million females), 9.9 percent of the total labor force, a decrease by 219,000 people or 7.1 percent compared to the first quarter of 2018, and a decrease of 621,000, or 17.8 percent comparing to the same period of last year.
CAPMAS stated that the percentage of unemployed in the age range of 15-29 year olds amounted to 77.9 percent in total.
It added that unemployment rate in the urban areas was 11.9 percent, while it had previously been 13.6 percent in the same quarter of the previous year.
In rural areas, the unemployment rate was 8.5 percent, compared with 9.5 percent in the first quarter of 2018, and compared to 10.7 percent in the same quarter of the previous year.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
