Egypt's ministries of finance and labour were swamped by thousands of application forms after they announced an employment scheme offering jobs to all citizens regardless of qualifications. "Send your personal information to Post Office Box number 11599," was all a laconic statement said. Two weeks on, a revised announcement now asks for applications to be sent by e-mail, giving a deadline of 4 March. No details have yet been revealed on the numbers of jobs or the sectors which would absorb them. The scheme was criticised by many for furthering burdening an already-overstuffed budget. Unemployed youth staged protests at the headquarters of the ministries of finance and oil demanding stable jobs in the public sector. National institutions related to the administrative body, such as newspapers Al-Ahram, Al-Gomhoureya and Rose Al-Youssef, have also seen demonstrations by hundreds of youths in search of stable employment. Before he was appointed Minster of Finance, Samir Radwan told Ahram Online that job opportunities in administrative bodies should no longer be an option. He said the LE67bn wages bill is set aside for six million employees, widely considered as partly unemployed. "The government should rather help create jobs in the private sector, like industrial, tourism and agriculture projects," he said. When he was appointed Minister of Finance, however, Radwan seemed to change his mind, declaring that when he looked closely he found many job opportunities in the public sector. "We need one million nurses," Radwan told one interviewer. An advisor to the minister says that the employment scheme is not only about the public sector, but includes private opportunities too. "There is a misunderstanding of the new scheme as an offer for free jobs... the government will not extend the actual size of the administrative body," says Abdel Fattah El-Guebali. Guebali explains that the new positions are calculated to make up for vacancies caused by the large numbers of retirees, estimated at 80,000 each year, "hence there will be no extra burden on the budget". Many labour experts are sceptical. "The announcement of public sector jobs is just a tranquilizer, as there are no real vacancies," argues a high official who worked for the last five years on a draft of a new civil service law. "Egypt suffers from a misallocation of public employees. Millions in main urban centres are unnecessary, while the remote regions lack for basic services, because employees refuse to live in deserted areas, deprived from good services," the official, who prefers to remain anonymous, told Ahram Online. He gives the example of a dentist from Cairo who refused to work in Marsa-Matrooh, 600km from the capital, despite the area's severe shortage of dentists. "Usually, they manage to get support by nepotism and stay where they wish." The announcement of jobs planned by the government to absorb the anger of unemployed youth generated another kind of protest, those of employees without full-time contracts. Estimated at around 600,000, some of them have been working in the public sector for as long as six years. Their salaries are considerably lower than their colleagues on permanent contracts and they lack basic social and health insurance. "Why didn't the government announce the availability of [these new] jobs before the revolution started? They reacted very late," says Amr Gomaa, judicial advisor to the State Council. The total number of public employees, both full-time and part time, may be as high as six million according to Safwat el-Nahas, president of the Central Agency for Organization and Administration in an interview with Al Youm 7. A new draft law was prepared under the unpopular government of former Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif. There are no signs if this draft will still be valid when a new parliament is elected.
