Egypt's unemployment rate down to 11.3 in Q4/2017

Egypt's statistics agency said in a report on Thursday that the country's unemployment rate decreased to 11.3 percent in the last quarter of 2017, in comparison to 12.4 percent during the same period in 2016.
The rate was 11.9 percent in Q3 of 2017.

"Egypt's number of unemployed persons reached 3,309,000 million, with a decrease of 282,000 in 2016's Q4, and 204,000 in Q3 of the same year," the report said.

In the first quarter of 2017, Egypt’s labour force was estimated in to be 29.149 million, increasing by 79,000 since the fourth quarter of 2016.

Young people (aged 15-29) made up 79 percent of those unemployed in May 2017.

Since 2014, the government has been implementing a set of economic reforms to lower budget deficits, including floating the Egyptian pound, cutting energy subsidies and putting in place a value-added tax.