Unemployment Rate in Egypt Stable at 7.2 Percent in Q2/2022

Egypt’s Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAMPAS) announced that the unemployment rate in Egypt in Q2/2022 remains unchanged at 7.2 percent, a slight increase from the previous quarter.

CAPMAS said on Monday that it recorded 2.151 million unemployed individuals from April to June, an increase of 0.3 percent compared to 2.145 million in the first quarter of 2022.

Q2 of 2022 recorded a 1.7 percent increase in unemployment compared to Q2 of 2021.

The second quarter recorded 1.25 million unemployed males and 901,000 unemployed females.

The age group between 15 and 29 years old had the highest rate of unemployment at 61.3 percent.

For 15 to 19-year-olds, the unemployment rate declined to 7.1 percent (8.4 percent for males and 5.5 percent for females) in the second quarter compared to 8.2 percent in the first quarter (10.6 percent for males and 4.9 percent for females).

For 20 to 24-year-olds, the unemployment rate declined to 27.6 percent (26.7 percent for males and 28.9 percent for females) in the second quarter compared to 28.2 percent in the first quarter (27.8 percent for males and 28.6 percent for females).

For 25 to 29-year-olds, the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 26.6 percent (25.7 percent for males and 27.8 percent for females) in the second quarter, compared to 26.6 percent in the first quarter (24.7 percent for males and 29 percent for females).

For 30 to 64-year-olds, the unemployment rate increased to 38.6 percent (39.2 percent for males and 37.8 for females) in the second quarter, compared to 37.2 percent in the first quarter (36.8 percent for males and 37.6 percent for females).

CAPMAS said that the unemployment rate reached to 10.6 percent in urban areas in the second quarter, increasing slightly compared to 10.5 in the first quarter of 2022, while it declined slightly compared to 11.2 percent in the second quarter of 2021.

The unemployed rate in the countryside reached 4.5 percent, remaining stable in both the first and second quarters of 2021 and recording a slight increase compared to 4.1 percent in the second quarter of 2021.

According to CAPMAS, the employment rate saw a 0.3 percent increase from April to June, or the second quarter of 2022, with the total number of employed people in Egypt reaching 29.985 million, compared to 29.895 million in the first quarter.

CAPMAS added in its statement that there was an increase of 84,000 employed people.

The labor force in urban areas reached 13.191 million people compared to 16.794 million in the countryside.

The number of employed males increased to 24.850 million, compared to 5.134 million females in the second quarter.

In April, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) projected that Egypt’s unemployment would fall to 6.9 percent in both 2022 and 2023, as it raised its projections for the country’s real GDP growth in 2022 by 0.3 percent to reach 5.9 percent, up from 5.6 percent expected in January, before slowing down to 5 percent in 2023 in its World Economic Outlook report.

Egypt is currently in talks with the IMF to obtain a fresh loan to support the country's economy against the harsh impacts of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and the already existing impacts of the pandemic.