Employment opportunities declined to 6,500 in November from 21,540 in the same month last year, representing a 70 per cent annual decline, the Information and Decision Support Center of the Egyptian Cabinet (IDSC) has revealed.

The monthly bulletin of the IDSC, which monitors the economic and social indicators in Egypt, showed also a decline by almost one third in November on a monthly basis in the rate of demand for Egyptian labor.

The IDSC index of labor demand also dropped to 149 points last November compared to 160 for the same month in 2009, pointing to a possible rise in unemployment. The index is based on job vacancies advertised in national newspapers, where the figures are compared to year 2002 (Index in 2002=100).

In September, the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) revealed a decline in the rate of unemployment during this period to 8.96 per cent, compared to 9.12 per cent during the previous quarter and 9.42 per cent during the same quarter of 2009, and a decline in the number of unemployed Egyptians by 2.35 million, or 1.7 per cent, from the previous quarter.

CAPMAS also noted an increase in the labor force to 26.2 million people for the current quarter, up 15 thousand per capita (0.6 per cent) compared to the previous quarter and an increase of 1.16 million per capita (4.6 per cent) for the same quarter compared with the previous year.

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