Improving Youth Employment Training in Egypt
Programs and partnerships
Lead institution(s)
Summary
In Egypt, 3.5 million youth are unemployed. Evidence shows that a substantial part of this problem is a mismatch between young workers and employers.Read more
In Egypt, 3.5 million youth are unemployed. Evidence shows that a substantial part of this problem is a mismatch between young workers and employers. This project aims to improve our understanding of the contribution of job fairs in the labor market behavior of jobseekers, how job fairs can be improved to ensure higher attendance and better job matching, and if information frictions regarding job fairs and the labor market, as well as capital constraints negatively affect the job search behavior and outcomes.
Education for Employment (EFE'Egypt) and the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (JPAL) will lead the project. The research will investigate how to recruit young workers for training programs most effectively, and how to design an employment-driven training model that responds to employers' skills demands. Researchers will also explore how to change employer beliefs that underprivileged youth do not have suitable skills. Similarly, they will look at how to influence perceptions among uninformed youth about employer skills demands and market returns.
Research outputs
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The research included a survey of 1200 Egyptian businesses along with multiple randomized trials for recruiting and training of young people. Findings show there are many hurdles for unemployed young people trying to find a job, and results illustrate the needs and biases of employers as well as the psychological frictions and skill deficiencies of potential workers. The recruitment experiments indicate that information frictions are an important factor – many people simply don’t know about the opportunities that are available to them. Investing in information campaigns is a promising way to increase application rates.
EFE-Egypt committed to the research questions outlined in the initial proposal and work plan. Such questions include: What skills and competencies are required to effectively train youth to meet labor market demands? What skills do youth need for continued career development? What employer and youth perceptions serve as significant obstacles to the employment of underprivileged youth in private companies? Which methods are most effective at recruiting youth for job training programs?