Evolution Of The Structure And Quality Of Employment In Egypt, 2012-2023

This paper examines the evolution of employment in Egypt over the 2012-2023 period. We start by examining employment growth, the structure of employment and its evolution across various types of employment and workplaces. We investigate the extent of employment underutilization as measured by time-related underemployment and educational over-qualification. We also assess the evolution of employment quality in the Egyptian labor market by examining how employment regularity, coverage by social insurance, access to paid leaves and health insurance and job satisfaction have changed over time across different groups of workers. We find that there are signs of improvement in employment outcomes in the 2018 to 2023 period, but that these improvements are mostly limited to male workers and, often only to more educated and privileged workers. We partly attribute these improvements to the emergence of the “missing middle” in the Egyptian economy.