{"id":466328,"date":"2016-07-28T11:08:56","date_gmt":"2016-07-28T11:08:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mecouncil.org\/?p=466328"},"modified":"2022-09-20T16:10:34","modified_gmt":"2022-09-20T16:10:34","slug":"youth-unemployment-in-egypt-a-ticking-time-bomb-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/youth-unemployment-in-egypt-a-ticking-time-bomb-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Youth unemployment in Egypt: A ticking time bomb"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this week,\u00a0a satirical Facebook post announced<\/a>\u00a0that the Egyptian Army engineers have developed an Egyptian dollar to combat the continued rise of the U.S. dollar. The new and improved $100 note features Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi\u2019s photo\u00a0instead of Benjamin Franklin\u2019s<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Another post\u00a0shows a video of Karam<\/a>, a simple man from upper Egypt, revealing his secret to getting a favorable exchange rate for converting Egyptian pounds to dollars. Karam simply lays the Egyptian pound notes out, covers them with his scarf, and sings nationalistic songs to them\u2014afterwards, he reveals a pile of fresh $1 notes. The video has since made it to mainstream media, with a news presenter sarcastically suggesting that Karam be appointed minister of finance.<\/p>\n

These posts\u2014just two recent examples of many\u2014reflect the Egyptians\u2019 pessimism about worsening economic conditions. With the resurgent authoritarianism under Sissi, it seems now the only way they can respond is with satire.<\/p>\n

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BIG PROMISES MEET REALITY<\/h2>\n

In a classic authoritarian bargain, President Sissi came to power two years ago promising security, stability, and economic prosperity in exchange for near-total political control. Now, that bargain is in the process of breaking down, since he\u2019s failed to deliver on all three fronts.<\/p>\n

The ISIS-inspired insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula continues to fester, and since 2013,\u00a0terror attacks\u00a0<\/a>have struck several Egyptian cities. The downing of the Russian jet in the Sinai Peninsula has brought down tourist arrivals. The\u00a0murder of Italian PhD student Giulio Regeni<\/a>has delivered a blow to\u00a0Egypt\u2019s relations<\/a>\u00a0with Italy and the EU. Protests erupted when the government suddenly\u00a0transferred the sovereignty<\/a>\u00a0of two islands to Saudi Arabia this April. The government responded by locking people up, and many remain in jail to date\u00a0on the charge of<\/a>\u00a0\u201cspreading rumors about the disputed Red Sea islands Tiran and Sanafir.\u201d In addition, incidents of sectarian violence\u00a0continue to flare up<\/a>. To many, Egypt seems to be moving backward, not forward.<\/p>\n

On the economic front, too, Sissi has over-promised and under-delivered. The Egyptian pound continues to lose value, and unemployment remains high. Since Sissi came to power, overall unemployment\u00a0has fallen slightly<\/a>\u00a0from 13.3 percent to 12.7 percent in the first quarter of 2016\u2014but youth unemployment remains high, at 31.3 percent. In a new policy published yesterday titled \u201cEducated but Unemployed: The Challenge Facing Egypt\u2019s Youth<\/a>,\u201d I argue that if the Egyptian government does not deal with the specific problem of youth unemployment soon, it will likely face instability\u2014and perhaps another uprising\u2014in the years to come.<\/p>\n

HYPER-NATIONALISM, ANYONE?<\/h2>\n

In spite of this situation, the Sissi government continues to\u00a0obsess over<\/a>\u00a0ultra-nationalistic and grandiose projects that will create desperately needed jobs in the short term\u2014but likely not enough.<\/p>\n

Egypt embarked on a major project to widen the Suez Canal, for example. The head of the Suez Canal Authority once predicted that the larger canal would generate $100 billion in one year.\u00a0Egypt spent $8 billion<\/a>\u00a0on the project, and Sissi (dressed in full military regalia) opened it last year with a spectacle involving cruising in King Farouk\u2019s yacht,\u00a0al Mahrousa<\/em>, in front of international dignitaries. A year later, the number of container ships passing through the canal is\u00a0down<\/em>\u00a0by 3 percent, due to lower oil prices and preferences\u00a0for the cheaper<\/a>\u00a0(but longer) route around the Cape of Good Hope.<\/p>\n

The government also announced flashy plans to build a new capital, adjacent to Cairo, at the Sharm el Shiekh investment conference in 2015. One year later, the project has stalled over disagreements between the government and one of the main Emirati developers. There\u2019s considerable debate over whether the new capital is even needed, or whether Egypt\u00a0would be better served by<\/a>\u00a0improving Cairo\u2019s existing infrastructure and directing resources to education and health care.<\/p>\n

THE JOBLESSNESS PROBLEM<\/h2>\n

As these political spectacles continue to unfold, the problem of youth unemployment continues to fester.\u00a0The policy brief\u00a0<\/a>analyses some of the root causes of the youth unemployment problem in Egypt. In particular, it sheds light on ongoing problems in the Egyptian higher education system: although public universities churn out thousands of graduates every year, many are unlikely to find employment in their respective fields.<\/p>\n

The brief also highlights the growing youth bulge. Demographic pressures mean that the Egyptian labor market is increasingly unable to cope with the number of new job seekers. The size of the youth population (ages 15 to 29)\u00a0has increased<\/a>\u00a0from 13.3 million in 1988 to 17.4 million in 1998 and 22.2 million in 2006.<\/p>\n

In the brief, I make four key policy recommendations: reform the higher education sector and its funding model; invest further in vocational training; increase the emphasis on entrepreneurship; and take steps to increase the participation of women in the work force.<\/p>\n

There is no silver bullet for dealing with youth unemployment, in Egypt or elsewhere. For these recommendations to have a chance at succeeding, they must be implemented within the context of an overall economic development policy that puts job creation at its center. Some policy changes may yield results at a faster pace, while others\u2014such as reform of the tertiary sector\u2014will take years.<\/p>\n

The important step, now, is for the Egyptian government to acknowledge the urgency of the challenges it faces. If youth unemployment in Egypt is not addressed head-on (and soon), the government might as well start printing Sissi dollars and appoint Karam as minister of finance, as it seems nothing else is really working.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier this week,\u00a0a satirical Facebook post announced\u00a0that the Egyptian Army engineers have developed an Egyptian dollar to combat the continued rise of the U.S. dollar. The new and improved $100 note features Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi\u2019s photo\u00a0instead of Benjamin Franklin\u2019s. Another post\u00a0shows a video of Karam, a simple man from upper Egypt, revealing his secret… Continue reading Youth unemployment in Egypt: A ticking time bomb<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":466329,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"publication_archive_type":[297],"class_list":["post-466328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","publication_archive_type-issue-brief","entry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466328"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":466331,"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466328\/revisions\/466331"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/466329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466328"},{"taxonomy":"publication_archive_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publication_archive_type?post=466328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}