In January 2022, President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi directed to raise the minimum wage to 2,700 pounds for government workers, after it was 1,200 pounds until March 2019, then 2,000 pounds in January 2020, then 2,400 pounds during March 2021.
Magdy El-Badawy, a member of the National Council for Wages and Vice-President of the Workers Union in Egypt, said in statements to “Sky News Arabia” that the National Wages Council is holding discussions with the private sector in order to raise the minimum wage for its workers from 2,400 to 2,700 pounds.
A member of the National Wages Council added that the consultative meetings are scheduled to be held in the last quarter of this year, with implementation to take place at the beginning of the new year 2023.
El-Badawy considers that this comes within the framework of Egypt’s efforts to support the private sector, expressing his admiration for the economic map to support the private sector announced by Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly last Sunday, which would prevent the sector from laying off workers, but also creating new job opportunities.
At the same time, he pointed out that improving wages and increasing job opportunities will only come through the settlement of the Egyptian industry to increase production.
The workforce in the Egyptian market
Last Sunday, the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics announced the results of the labor force search for the first quarter (January-March) of 2022, where the unemployment rate reached 7.2% of the total labor force, compared to 7.4% in the previous quarter of 2021, a decrease of 0.2% for each of the previous quarter and the same quarter of the previous year.
The estimate of the size of the labor force recorded 29,895 million individuals, compared to 29,653 million individuals during the previous quarter, an increase of 0.8%. The urban labor force amounted to 13.170 million individuals, while it amounted to 16.725 million individuals in the countryside.
At the gender level, the size of the labor force for males reached 24,670 million, while for females it reached 5,225 million.
The Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics attributed this to an increase in the number of employed persons by 297 thousand during the current quarter compared to the previous quarter, and a decrease of the unemployed by 55 thousand, which led to an increase in the labor force by 242 thousand individuals.
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