Briefing Paper

Targeting Industries to Drive Youth Employment

Over the 2006-2017 period, Egypt’s average rate of unemployment was 11 percent, with a 24 percent unemployment among the youth (15-29). To mitigate unemployment (in total, and among the youth), a primary policy concern is how to promote industries with a high employment-generating potential. For this purpose, it remains key to identifying those industries, and to move beyond the national-level, to the regional/governorate-levels. The promotion of industries at the regional level comes against the backdrop of the regions’ total employment, youth employment, the skill and gender features of employment, and youth unemployment.