The government took a series of measures in the past two years to maintain the recovery of the labor market and keep production going, despite the toll the Covid-19 pandemic has had on the local and the international economy.
These measures were detailed in a report released yesterday by the Cabinet’s Information and Decision Support Center.
The report throws light on the work state agencies have done since the emergence of the pandemic to prevent the pandemic from negatively affecting the national economy or increasing unemployment which had already started going down before the pandemic.
The government, the report said, rushed to support economic sectors most affected by the pandemic.
It added that the government also moved ahead with the implementation of a large number of national projects that needed intensive labour, improved the business climate and kept foreign investments flowing into Egypt.
These improving conditions, the report said, reflected in forecasts for the national economy by international institutions.
National projects created 3 million jobs for the nation’s workers in 2021, despite the pandemic, the report said.
It added that the recovery of the local labour market in the same year was induced by the success of the economic reform programme.
The unemployment rate decreased by 5.2%, coming down to 7.3%, in the second quarter of 2021, compared to 12.5% in the second quarter of 2016, the report said.
It added that in the second quarter of 2020, the unemployment rate was 9.6 %.
The report noted that the local workforce rose by 8% in the second quarter of 2021, reaching 27 million, compared to 25 million in the second quarter of 2016.
It said 28,500 companies were established in the fiscal year 2020/2021, which amounts to an increase of 135.5%, compared to the number of companies established in the fiscal year 2015/2016.
Around 19.2% of the workforce worked in agriculture and fishing in the second quarter of 2021, the report said.
It added that 15.3% of the workforce worked in the wholesale and retail sector, while 13.6% worked in the construction and building sector, 12.9% in the industrial sector and 8.8% in the transport sector.
The Cabinet’s Information and Decision Support Center referred, meanwhile, in its report to the measures taken by the government to reduce unemployment.
It said the authorities in the different governorates allowed the operation of parks and the beaches in May 2021, but under a strict application of precautionary measures.
The center added that among the measures taken to ensure the continued operation of the tourism sector was the inoculation of tourism workers in the Red Sea and South Sinai.
It added that health authorities also started the immunization of factory workers around the nation.
It cited the most important national projects that were launched in the past period with the aim of creating jobs and reducing unemployment.
The report said these projects included the New Delta project, which provides about 207,000 new direct and indirect jobs.
The project, it said, included the reclamation of 200,000 feddans.
An additional 250,000 feddans are being reclaimed within the same project, the center said in its report.
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