CAIRO: Egypt's Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) issued a new report on the number of Egyptians traveling abroad for work purposes, and said that some 492,600 thousand Egyptians received permits to work abroad for the first time in 2008, up about 10 percent from the previous year. The news comes despite ongoing criticisms of the foreign ministry over what rights groups and activists are calling the lack of initiative in securing Egyptian rights in foreign nations. Many Egyptians point to the Gulf nations as the countries where Egyptian workers are worse off. Reports of shootings in recent months against Egyptian doctors have heightened tensions between Egyptians and their foreign contractors. (see also “Update: Conflicting reports on alleged ‘murdered' Egyptian doctor”) The agency added that there were another 607,000 Egyptian workers who renewed their work permits abroad. The agency explained, in the release of an interim Egyptian workers abroad brochure published by CAPMAS, that Arab countries have the bulk of Egyptians working abroad. Saudi Arabia topped the list of the nations receiving an Egyptian labor force, with the number of workers in the Gulf Kingdom reaching 521,000 in total and 49.3 percent of the total Egyptians working abroad. Kuwait was second at 17 percent, CAPMAS said. The report said that there is a difference between the number of Egyptians working in Europe, whose numbers reached 34,100 thousand. Italy came in at the top of European countries receiving Egyptians workers, with around 86 percent of all Egyptian workers in Europe. This was followed by Greece at some 15 percent. Education seems to be a large factor in the number of Egyptians heading abroad. CAPMAS noted that the workers who hold lower rates of education than the average Egyptians and are not in the top tier of graduation percentiles, are among the first “of those working abroad.” Only around 27 percent of Egyptians abroad hold post-graduate degrees, and these are mainly doctors, said CAPMAS. The report also stated that men make up some 97 percent of the workforce going abroad. **reporting by Mohamed Abdel Salam BM
