Arab Finance: Egypt’s unemployment rate hit 6% in the first quarter (Q1) of 2026, down by 0.2 percentage points from the previous quarter, the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics' (CAPMAS) data showed.
Total labor force increased by 1.7% to 35.412 million people in Q1 2026, up from 34.829 million in Q4 2025.
Urban areas accounted for 15.238 million workers, while rural areas represented 20.174 million. Males made up 27.588 million of the labor force, compared to 7.824 million females.
The number of unemployed individuals reached 2.126 million, equal to 6.0% of the total labor force. This figure is 1.2% lower than the 2.152 million unemployed in the October-December 2025 period.
On April 29th, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly noted in a cabinet meeting that the unemployment rate fell to 6.3% year-on-year (YoY) in 2025 from 6.6%.
The unemployment rate among youth aged 15–29 dropped to 13.2% in 2025 from 14.9% in 2024. For young people in the same age group with intermediate, post-intermediate, university, and postgraduate qualifications, the unemployment rate declined to 16.8% in 2025, compared to 18.7% in 2024.
