Egypt's unemployment rates soared to 11.9 percent during the first quarter of 2011 - an increase from 8.9 percent from late 2010, according to a government statistics agency. Negative economic impacts from events that accompanied the 25 January revolution caused the increase, said Abu Bakr al-Gendi, director of the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics, at a news conference Wednesday. The total of unemployed Egyptians increased from 799,000 to more than 2.1 million in the same period - an increase of 24.2 percent, Gendi said. Compared with the first quarter of 2010, the number increased by 21.6 percent. Translated from the Arabic Edition
