Egypt raises minimum, maximum social insurance subscription starting Jan. 2023

CAIRO – 28 November 2022: Chairman of the National Authority for Social Insurance Gamal Awad announced Monday raising the minimum and maximum base salary for social insurance subscription starting January 2023.

The minimum became LE17,000 instead of LE14,000, while the maximum will be LE10,900 in comparison to LE9,400. As a result, the minimum and maximum pensions are now LE1,105 and LE8,720, respectively.  

Awad underscored that the decision does not contravene the minimum wage set at LE3,000 because not all subscribers are formal workers. Rather, there are millions of irregular workers in the sectors of construction, mining, fishermen, and baking among others.  

The Ministry of Social Solidarity had announced that the number of employed citizens subscribed to social insurance amounted to 14,036,312 on February 1, and that the number of pensioners has become 10,670,996.

The Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) stated in 2020 that the number of workers in the private sector, formal and informal, had recorded 12.6 million, while that of public employees is six million.

CAPMAS also pointed out that 44.7 percent of employed citizens are subscribed to social insurance. Those compose 97.2 percent of governmental employees, 93.4 percent of state-owned companies/factories (public enterprise) employees, and 10 percent of informal workers.

Those figures mean that the breakdown of employed Egyptians subscribed to social insurance is around 5.4 million working for the governmental and public enterprise, and 8.6 million working for the private formal and informal sector.  

The Cabinet's Information and Decision Support Center (IDSC) indicates that 44 percent of employed Egyptians work in the informal sector, and they are concentrated in rural areas where 60 percent of jobs belong. As for the formal sector, 35 percent work in the formal private sector, while 21 percent work for the government and public enterprise.

Forty-four percent of informal workers are in the agricultural sector, 26.4 percent in constructions, 16.2 percent in transportation and storage, and 13.4 percent work in small workshops, handicrafts, and as pedestrian vendors.