CAIRO — Egypt has become concerned over the prospect that millions
of expatriate laborers would return home.
Officials said millions of Egyptian laborers in the Gulf Cooperation
Council could lose their jobs during the current economic crisis. They said
the biggest concern was that Egyptian construction workers would be fired in
such GCC states as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
"The Egyptian economy is based on the huge expatriate market, which
sends billions of dollars home to their families," an official said.
Officials said returning Egyptians would have few opportunities in their
native land.
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The state-owned Egyptian Center for Economic Studies said 500,000
Egyptian laborers could lose their jobs in GCC states by 2010. The center
said many of the Egyptians have been employed on a temporary basis by
contractors in Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Egyptian labor has played a leading role in the construction and service
sectors throughout the Arab world, particularly in Jordan, Libya and the
Gulf. At least 30 percent of Egyptian construction workers were said to have
already lost their jobs in GCC states.
GCC economies were expected to slide into a recession and budget
deficits in 2009. Analysts said several GCC states would undergo an economic
decline of more than 20 percent amid the drop in the price of crude oil.
Over the last six months, the growth rate of the construction
sector dropped from 15.6 percent in 2008 to 9.4 percent in 2009. They cited
the increasing cost of credit.
In 2009, unemployment in Egypt was said to have reached 30 percent and
inflation 15 percent. In April, President Hosni Mubarak warned that the
economic crisis could worsen over the next few months.