EGYPT'S UNEMPLOYED TARGET MURSI AFTER TOPPLING MUBARAK: JOBS

Egypt’s Unemployed Target Mursi After Toppling Mubarak: Jobs

By Mariam Fam and Alaa Shahine

June 24, 2013

   Egypt's President Mohamed Mursi

Mohamed Kamel and dozens of other engineering graduates have gathered outside Egypt’s Oil Ministry and a state-run energy company in Cairo for months, clamoring for jobs. During one of their demonstrations, he says, they were chased away by security guards wielding sticks and belts.

Kamel, 23, blames his unemployment on the regime of President Mohamed Mursi. On June 30, he plans to join nationwide protests marking the first year of Mursi’s presidency and demanding early elections. Kamel is among those who say Mursi has failed to create jobs or revive the economy, among the complaints that sparked the 2011 uprising ousting Hosni Mubarak.

“We are all frustrated and are in a bad psychological state,” Kamel said of his fellow job-seekers. “I will be demanding that this regime leave because it has proved to be a failure.”

More than 1 million people have swelled the ranks of Egypt’s unemployed since the first quarter of 2010, bringing joblessness to a record 13.2 percent in the same period this year. Eight out of every 10 jobless Egyptians are under 30, and more than a quarter of them hold university degrees or higher, official data show.

“Economic grievances pose the greatest threat to Mursi’s rule,” said Yasser el-Shimy, a Cairo-based analyst with the International Crisis Group, which tracks conflict around the world. Many unemployed youths feel “left out of this whole system, so they might increasingly resort to rioting and other forms of violence to make their voices heard, which ironically contributes to more deterioration in the overall situation.”
Jobless Youth

The newly elected Islamist rulers in North Africa, saddled with one of the world’s highest rates of youth unemployment, are struggling to live up to the aspirations of those who brought them to power.

Almost 17 percent of all Tunisians are unemployed, higher than the level in 2010, according to International Monetary Fund data. Unrest that year led to the toppling of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. And while joblessness in Morocco has “steadily declined over the past decade, youth unemployment remains very high at about 18 percent,” the IMF said in a report last month.

In his bid to become Egypt’s first democratically elected civilian president, Mursi pledged to lure investments and bring joblessness to below 7 percent by 2016, according to his platform. In Tunisia, the Ennahdha party campaigned on a promise to bring unemployment down to 8.5 percent by 2016.
Bumpy Transition

The promises fueled already high expectations spurred by the revolts. In Egypt, a country where government jobs are seen as the best path to steady work, many Arab Spring protesters thought they’d see an explosion in employment.

After Egypt’s uprising, “I dreamed and my imagination led me to believe that salaries will increase, that those who are hungry will no longer be and that there will be social justice,” said Manar Shoukre, 23, who participated in the 2011 protests that led to Mubarak’s fall. Instead, she was laid off from a translation job shortly after that.

The bumpy transition to democracy eroded investor confidence and stifled job creation in a region long plagued with unemployment.

In Tunisia, an unidentified street vendor set himself ablaze in March, more than two years after a similar act by Mohamed Bouazizi triggered the so-called Arab Spring. “This is what’s happening to a young man from Tunisia because of unemployment,” the man, thought to be in his 20s, shouted before immolating himself. He later died.
Selling Clothes

Hakim Al Rajhi, 32, has a degree in law and humanities. To make a living, the Sidi Bouzid resident works in shops selling clothes or, occasionally, in construction. He’s been looking for a job that fits his qualifications since 2007.

“We revolted against Ben Ali because of poor social conditions but after the revolution it became worse,” he said in a phone interview. “I can’t get married” or meet his “smallest need,” he said. “The government’s ignoring our demands will lead us to one solution, which is a new revolution.”

Tunisia’s economic growth slowed to 2.5 percent in the first quarter this year, compared with 4.8 percent a year earlier. The country’s sovereign debt has lost its investment-grade status at Moody’s Investors Service, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings.

The Egyptian economy is set to grow 2 percent this year, close to the slowest pace since 1992, according to the IMF. Cuts by the three ratings companies after the revolt pushed Egypt’s credit rating deeper into junk.

“The management of the post-revolutionary economy has been miserable,” former Finance Minister Samir Radwan said in a telephone interview. “The public sector is still the main provider of jobs.” He was appointed by Mubarak and continued to serve in the transition government.