ABSTRACT
According to official estimates, aggregate unemployment in Egypt was only 2.2 per cent in 1960 and 7.7 per cent in 1976. Information about unemployment in Egypt is confusing. While labour force surveys showed that unemployment was decreasing from 4.8 per cent in 1960 to 2.8 per cent in 1976, population censuses revealed that the trend had been in the opposite direction, that is, from 2.2 per cent to 7.7 per cent in the same period. The chapter traces the progression of educated unemployment in Egypt through labour market policies. The lengthening of the period of military conscription from three years to five years or six years in some cases, after the 1967 war until the following war in 1973, definitely decreased the supply of primary workers, by delaying the entry or re-entry of the draftees to the labour market.
