Egypt labour market: Digital tips for employment

Kicking off on Saturday at the American University in Cairo’s Greek Campus in downtown Cairo, the Shaghalni (Employ Me) Forum will be connecting visiting job-seekers with companies and employers.

Shaghalni already has a website that helps job-seekers find employment. It has been operating since 2016, and it has been growing over the years.

“The forum’s first round saw the participation of nine companies hunting for 3,500 workers,” said Omar Khalifa, CEO of Shaghalni. “In this year’s edition, 30 companies will be offering between 50 and 800 jobs each,” he told Al-Ahram Weekly.

Anyone looking for a job can post their résumé for free on the Shaghalni website where it will be seen by companies seeking to hire employees in different fields.

Khalifa is optimistic about this year’s round of the forum, believing that “the labour market has regained its strength,” primarily because the majority of companies that had earlier slowed down their rate of hiring during the Covid-19 pandemic are now bouncing back. Egypt’s unemployment rate ranges around 7.5 per cent.

Egypt’s labour market has been suffering from gaps that Shaghalni is trying to fill: despite the rise in the unemployment rates, many companies have been failing to fill vacancies. The problem, Khalifa said, is that employers and job-seekers cannot find meeting points, which is where Shaghalni comes in.