The Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics in Egypt revealed that the unemployment rate rose to 9.2 per cent in April due to the coronavirus pandemic. The agency said that the precautionary measures taken by the government to confront the pandemic, such as the closure of schools, the suspension of air traffic and the closure of shops, led to an increase in the unemployment rate. The agency added that the unemployment rate reached 7.7 per cent in the first quarter of this year, down from eight per cent in the previous three months, and from 8.1 per cent compared to the same period a year ago.

The estimate of the labour force in the first quarter of the year is 29 million people, compared to 28 million people in the previous quarter, an increase of 0.2 per cent. The number of unemployed was two million people, or 7.7 per cent of the total workforce, a decrease of 93,000 unemployed from the fourth quarter of 2019 by 0.3 per cent. The unemployment rate among males was 4.5 per cent, and 21.9 per cent among females. The percentage of the unemployed in the age group 15-29 years is 68.5 per cent of the total unemployed. Data for the first quarter of the year were collected on March 15, before the start of the precautionary measures.