أثر سياسات الإصلاح الاقتصادى على التوظف فى القطاع الزراعى

The Egyptian agricultural sector occupies a major role in labor force employment, particularly, the farm family labor. On the other Hand human labor is one of the major agricultural resources. Therefore, the development of human resources in agriculture communities is a principal determinant of development in Egypt. In addition, the expansion in capital accumulation (investment) would to reach its goals without a coincident investment in human resources development Accordingly, the objectives of this study are to investigate the impact of the economic reform and market liberalization policies on agricultural labor employment through estimating some economic indicators. These are the changes in the volume of agricultural labor and its share in total Egyptian labor, the changes in wage rate level and trend, the changes in agricultural labor productivity level and trend, and the ratio of wage rate to agricultural labor productivity. The levels and time trend of these indicators were compared during tow periods. The first was (1982-1987) as the period before the economic reform and market liberalization policies application. The second was the period (1988-2002) an era of economic reform and market liberalization. The relative efficiency of agricultural labor employment was investigated via a comparison between the indicators of agricultural labor employment versus those f non-agricultural labors. The study relayed upon data from FAO, Arab Organization for Agricultural development, Central Agency for Public mobilization and Statistics and the publications of the statistical and economical department of the Egyptian ministry of agriculture. The results showed that as the non-agricultural labor volume has increased during the economic reform era, it has decreased for agricultural labor due to agricultural mechanization and because the rural educated youth have favoured employment opportunities of non¬agricultural activities with a an increasing real wage rate. The agricultural labor productivity has increased over the economic reform era, even though, it's relative level to non-agricultural labor productivity has declined from one third to one fourth. As a result the ratio of agricultural labor wage rate to its productivity has deteriorated from about 21% before the economic reform program to 10% after completion of such program. Key words: Employment, Economic Reform, agricultural sector