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Al-Ahram Weekly 11 - 17 November 1999 Issue No. 455 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 11 - 17 November 1999 Issue No. 455
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Profile Travel Books Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters The ghost of full employment
By Fatemah FaragThe second meeting of the new cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Atef Ebeid, discussed ways of alleviating rising unemployment which, according to a cabinet statement, has now reached 1.4 million.
The seriousness with which the new government is taking the matter can be gauged by the announcement of emergency measures, to be implemented immediately and intended to take 150,000 people off the job market by providing job opportunities in the ministries of education, health, local government and religious endowments.
On 7 November the prime minister unveiled a second scheme aimed at improving the chances of graduates in the job market. The Transitional Employment of College Graduates initiative allows for graduates to receive a salary while undergoing training programmes and gaining work experience.
Such initiatives, while alleviating short term problems, will do little to buck the underlying trend, and any major improvement in the situation will depend on securing a level of economic growth sufficient to absorb the growing number of entrants to the labour market.
A recent report prepared by the Shura Council's Human Resource Committee estimated that the labour force would reach 20 million by the year 2000 and lamented three decades absence of any comprehensive planning in training and labour programmes.
According to Mahmoud Abdel-Fadil, professor of economics at Cairo University, "globalisation, structural adjustment and technological advances have acted to reduce rather than increase the demand for labour in the Middle East and North Africa". And any job creation in Egypt during the 1970s and 1980s, he further points out, was restricted to low skilled and non-tradable sectors such as construction.
Using government figures provided by the 1990-95 Labour Force Sample Survey, Nader El-Fergany, head of the Almishkat Research Centre, has concluded that little over 700,000 new job opportunities were created in the five year period. The same number of jobs would need to be created annually if the labour market is to absorb all new entrants.
Off the record government officials are willing to concede that any long term solution to the problem remains distant. "To solve un-employment requires a solution to several seemingly intractable economic problems. But until that happens people must live and you do not want them to loose their skills. So we can come up with transitional solutions, but these are only temporary and should not mask the underlying problems," explained one senior official who preferred to remain anonymous.
The government's current strategy largely depends on the activities of the Social Fund for Development (SFD). Established by presidential decree in 1991, among the SFD's stated aims is "to mobilise international and local funds and technical assistance to create rapid disbursing projects through which permanent and temporary job opportunities could be generated to help the most vulnerable groups of the population, teach them new skills and improve their living standards".
Currently, the SFD has been asked to double its job creation targets, from 100,000 to 200,000 new opportunities annually. "This is a major increase," says Ahmed Mokhtar, SFD international co-operation and information adviser. "In an attempt to meet it we will be stressing medium sized projects as opposed to micro and small projects which employ a maximum of five or six people," he continued. "These new projects will include loans of up to LE1 million, and will create jobs for between 30 to 50 people."
SFD projects target two basic groups -- new entrants to the job market, and those whose skills have become redundant. A Labour Adjustment Service provides public sector employees with skills' development and retraining programmes, and an early retirement programme is already in place.
Other training programmes are also in place, such as that operated by ACCOR in the tourism sector. "The tourist sector needs employees with specific skills, and have identified 4,382 vacancies," says Nagla El-Gibaly, assistant officer for the Human Resources Development Programme at SFD. "We train on condition of employment and split the cost. What we are trying to do is make people understand the importance of training. In the beginning we would fund the whole thing but today companies are starting to pay a part of the bill."
Training centres, too, are being upgraded -- 16 so far in an on-going programme. And the SDF's new Skills Standards Project will begin operating this month. "Four hundred have been identified for inclusion in the project," says El-Gibaly. "We will start with one hundred for which the project will set standards, develop the trades materially, and teach people to become trainers." The programme, it is hoped, will eventually offer professional qualifications that will be recognised throughout the relevant industries.
