CAIRO, Jan 20 (Aswat Masriya) – Egypt and the Occupied Palestinian Territories lead the region in incidence of job informality among youth, an International Labour Organisation (ILO) report on Tuesday said.   

Job informality among youth in both Egypt and the occupied territories is more than 90 percent, according to the report on world employment and social outlook for 2015. Meanwhile, job informality among youth in Jordan and Tunisia stands at more than 50 percent.  

Former ILO adviser Samir Radwan told Aswat Masriya that youth who take on informal jobs do not have basic rights such as the chance to be appointed. They also do not receive health and social insurance.     

Youth unemployment rates are expected to remain 3.7 times higher than the adult rate through 2015.

The report cites lack of employment opportunities in the Middle East and North Africa region as the reason for the increase in informality. It states that “unemployment rates in the region continue to be the highest in the world, with the youth unemployment rate at a staggering 29.5 per cent in 2014 and expected to rise to 29.8 per cent in 2015.”  

It said regional labour markets “have yet to recover from the political instability” that hit the region in 2011. It added that “difficult political transitions, security challenges and rising regional conflicts continue to weigh on the economic prospects” of the region. 

Egypt’s Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS) reported in November a decline in the rate of unemployment in Egypt during the third quarter of the year by 0.2 percent compared to the second quarter, as unemployment rate stood at 13.1 percent.