Egypt's President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi affirmed that building the country cannot take place without the help of loyal Egyptian workers, their sound awareness, and constantly developing skills. He added that this requires the government to carry out the necessary coordination, with all concerned institutions, to expand training programs for young people of both genders and continue to develop training centres, which operate under the umbrella of the presidential initiative "Decent Life". In his speech on the occasion of Labor Day, on Monday, Al-Sisi congratulated Egypt's workers, saying that "the world today is characterized by competition and continuous change. Being aware of the highest degrees of modern science, absorbing and adapting it to produce applied technology, establishing and consolidating skills of discipline and accuracy, exploding creativity energies, delving into all the requirements of modern management, and advanced industrial development, all of these have become factors that achieving progress and prosperity for peoples could not be made without it." He added that the successive global crises, from the Coronavirus pandemic to the Russian-Ukrainian crisis, came to add to the difficulties faced by many countries of the world, especially developing countries, including Egypt. Al-Sisi also emphasized his keenness to always provide the maximum support and care for workers, as the minimum wage has been increased, social protection programs have been launched and strengthened, the necessary support for irregular employment has been provided, and work has been done to integrate people with special needs into the labour market, and the expansion of national projects to provide decent job opportunities, as well as to prepare the national employment strategy. The president further announced establishing an emergency subsidy fund for irregular employment, and transferring the dues of social and health accounts to it, allowing them to be invested and spent, in emergencies and crises on irregular employment in a sustainable manner, and to maximize the social and developmental return from it, and to start activating the work of the fund immediately after the end of the legal procedures, by disbursing an urgent subsidy value, for irregular employment that does not benefit from social protection programs, in the amount of EGP 1000. Al-Sisi also decided to issue a new document from the "Aman" certificate, which was previously issued in 2017, to cover life insurance and work injuries for irregular employment, and to ensure that all private sector establishments, the public sector and the public business sector adhere to the legally prescribed rate of "5%", to employ persons with disabilities and continue to work on developing their skills and integrating them into the labour market. Moreover, the president called for the Ministry of Manpower to complete the launch of the national platform for labour market information, and for the ministries and concerned authorities to coordinate with the private sector, to complete the procedures aimed at working to achieve gender equality in the field of work, achieve a safe work environment, and increase labour rates. Furthermore, the president directed the launch of a national campaign, to enhance the mental image of the value of work and its importance to the individual and society, to encourage young people to integrate into self-employment and entrepreneurship and to establish their small, medium and micro-projects.
