Egypt's unemployment to drop to 10.9% by end of 2018

Unemployment in Egypt is expected to drop to 10.9 per cent by the end of 2018 from 12.2 per cent in 2017, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced yesterday.

In the annual “World Economic Outlook – October 2018” report, IMF predicted that Egypt’s unemployment rate will continue to fall to reach 9.9 per cent by the end of 2019.

“Unemployment in Egypt is prevailing among Egyptian youth, with 77.9 per cent of the total unemployed Egyptians aged between 15 and 29 years,” the IMF pointed out. Egypt plans to reduce the unemployment rate to 8.5 per cent by the end of the financial year 2021-22.

The recovery of foreign reserves and the flexible exchange rate, IMF added, have well-positioned the Egyptian economy to manage any acceleration in foreign inflows.

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The report predicted that the country’s inflation will decline to 20.9 per cent in 2018, compared to 23.5 per cent in 2017. “Egypt’s inflation rate is estimated to continue to decline to reach 14 per cent in 2019,” the report read.

However, in the April World Economic Outlook report, the IMF predicted that Egypt’s inflation will stand at 20.1 this year, adding that it will register 13 per cent in 2019. It also anticipated that it will drop to seven per cent in 2023.