Construction sector provides 3.7M jobs: Min.

CAIRO – 4 March 2018: The construction sector has helped in providing around 3.7 million jobs, representing 20 percent of total workers in the domestic market, Planning Minsiter Hala al-Saeed said Sunday.

She added that the sector is expected to achieve 12 percent growth in the upcoming fiscal year. This came during Saeed’s speech in the Builders of Egypt IV Forum held in Cairo on Sunday.

Saeed shed the light on the importance of the construction sector and its role in boosting growth and providing jobs.

She also referred to the importance of human resources development, saying that
President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi directed that state employees get the needed training.

Accordingly, Saeed said that agreements have been signed with prominent training academies to provide state employees with trainings in a bid to enhance the efficiency of the state’s administrative sector.

Egypt's unemployment rate dropped to 11.3 percent in the last quarter of 2017, in comparison to 12.4 percent during the same period in 2016, according to Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS).

The construction sector is an important sector in Egypt, but workers in the field face low job security and have no access to pensions as they are paid on a daily basis.
Addressing these problems, President Sisi has issued directions recently to provide social insurance to daily laborers.

In response, Prime Minister Sherif Ismail announced last week the introduction of new certificates, “Aman” certificates, which will be introduced by a number of state banks and state insurance companies.

The Aman Certificate (Security Certificate) is a new life insurance plan for casual and temporary workers.

The certificates can be purchased without any fees or opening an account. They range from LE 500-2,500, providing insurance coverage and monthly pensions for casual workers with a 16 percent interest rate.

The policy includes coverage for natural and accidental death and pays one-time benefits of LE 10,000-250,000 or monthly pensions of LE 200-1,000 over five years or LE 120-600 over 10 years.

Official estimates show that the number of informal workers, including craftsmen, daily-hire workers and self-employed, is 15 million.