Infographic: Egypt’s labor market dominated by ‘severe disparities,’ CAPMAS study says

Egypt’s labor market is “dominated by extreme disparities” when it comes to women’s participation in the workforce and the legal protections and benefits afforded to informal sector workers, according to a report published by the government’s statistics agency CAPMAS earlier this week. 

The disparities that the CAPMAS report, published on October 7 to coincide with the World Day for Decent Work, focus on issues including the fixity of work afforded to employees, whether they are granted social insurance, and the gendered composition of the workforce.   

The CAPMAS report divides employees into four sectors: government jobs, public business sector jobs, private-sector jobs, and informal private-sector jobs (for example, taxi drivers and farmers). 

Focusing on gender, CAPMAS stated that women’s participation in the labor force — the agency calculates participation as the number of employees divided by the population above 15 years old — is less than a quarter of men’s participation rate. 

The gender disparity can also be seen in social insurance coverage. According to the report, 71 percent of women in the labor force receive social insurance in contrast to 40.8 percent of men, attributable to the fact that women workers are concentrated in the public sector where a high percentage of labor receives social insured.

Apart from the stark gender gap, there are also marked disparities in terms of the fixity of work for those working in the private and those working in the public sector.  For example, the government sector has the highest rate of permanent employees at 98.3 percent, followed by workers in the public business sector with 95 percent. Meanwhile, the private sector fared the worst with only 23.9 percent of its labor described as having a permanent job. 

“Permanent employment” refers to jobs with consistent and fixed daily hours, and excludes freelance and part-time jobs, according to Heba al-Lithy, a CAPMAS advisor.  

According to Lithy, “independent contractor” is a term that captures jobs that are not tied to a certain employer. “It is a concept that includes the majority of farmers and all taxi drivers for example,” says Lithy.

The report did not include employees in the private sector for this indicator. Despite contacting CAPMAS to inquire about the exclusion, Mada Masr was unable to get a sufficient explanation.

Health care coverage also varies between the different sectors. While 96.6 percent of government employees and 90.5 percent in the public business sector receive health insurance, only 25.7 percent of in-house employees in the private sector had health insurance. Independent contractors in the private sector did even worse, with only 2.1 percent having health insurance.

Perhaps the greatest disparity between public and private sector labor is in legal employment contracts. While 99 percent of government labor and 96.3 percent of the public business sector labor hold legal employment contracts, only 29.3 percent of in-house labor and as few as 1.3 percent of independent contractors in the private sector have contracts. 

Private-sector workers also worked more hours than other sectors, clocking an average of 50.6 hours per week, while public business sector and government employees work 45 and 41.7 hours per week, respectively.