The Labor Force

A Large, Skilled and Low-Cost Labor Force

WITH A POPULATION OF 74.29 million, one of Egypt's most valuable assets is its human resources sector. Egyp­tian universities and technical schools graduate more doctors, engineers, pharmacists and technicians than any other coun­try in the Middle East. At 22.8 million, Egypt's workforce is the largest in the Arab world and the third-largest in the MENA re­gion, after Iran and Turkey. With 4 million workers current­ly working abroad and remittances standing at USS 6.3 billion, Egypt is also a major exporter of labor services.

The agricultural sector has traditionally been the largest em­ployer in Egypt, accounting for 39% of all jobs in 1982. In the years since, diversification of the Egyptian economy, an im­provement in educational services and a significant expansion in private-sector investment has seen the industrial and service sectors offer Egyptian workers jobs outside of agriculture.

Manufacturing, tourism, ICT and trade are now employ­ing large numbers of workers. In recent years, Egypt's indus­trial base has grown at a pace that is rapid enough to employ an increasing proportion of the 600,000-plus new entrants to the workforce each year. Egypt's industrial sector currently employs 19% of the country's non-agricultural workforce, while the ser­vice sector employs 66%.

Competitive Wages

Wage levels in Egypt are considered amongst the lowest in the MENA region. The average wage level in the private sector now stands at USS 41 per week, with health and social services ranking at the lower end of the spectrum at USS 15.4 per week. The financial services sector, meanwhile, is at the higher end, with a wage rate of USS 89.6 per week.

Competitive wages have been a major incentive for foreign factories operating in labor-intensive industries such as textiles, glass manufacturing and building materials to relocate to Egypt — to say nothing of an unparalleled basket of preferential trade agreements, a low domestic cost structure and proximity to key global markets.

Egypt's textiles workers for example, earn only 47% of the sala­ry that their Tunisian counterparts make. 36% of a Moroccan's sal­ary and 32% of the wages made by textile workers in Turkey.

Training Egypt's Industrial Workforce

In an effort to modernize the economy and create international­ly competitive industries, the government has prioritized the re­vamping of the nation's industrial training process.

Today, industrial training is being approached in a much more demand-driven manner than it was in the past. The Indus­trial Training Council (ITC) was created in 2006 as an offshoot of the Industrial Modernization Center (IMC), an EGP 426 mil­lion program originally created with European funding to up­grade Egypt's industrial capacity. The primary mandate of the council is to match up the skills of the labor force with the cur­rent demands of industry.

The ITC focuses on creating a globally competitive Egyp­tian workforce by providing them with accredited educational, vocational and other training they need to perform at a world­class quality standard. The ITC works directly with industry to identify recruitment needs, provide recruitment services and develop training programs. Approximately 80% of the cost of on the job training is subsidized by the ITC.

An accreditation system is also being developed by the ITC to improve and standardize the quality of both public and pri­vate training providers, with the ultimate goal being the cre­ation of a diversified pool of Egyptian workers trained by ac­credited trainers at accredited training centers. Accredited workers will hold licenses that must be regularly renewed.

Training Skilled Labor

In cooperation with various multinational companies, the Egyp­tian Ministry of Communications and Information Technolo­gy (MOT) has initiated the "'Professional Training Program" which aims to build a pool of skilled Egyptian ICT graduates. The program ensures that engineering and computer science graduates have skills that align closely with industry require­ments.

Since the program launched in 2000, more than 35,000 stu­dents have acquired internationally recognized certifications in ICT related skills.