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Labor Markets in the Middle East and North Africa during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Room 1055 – Abdul Latif Jameel Building
AUC Avenue, P.O. Box 74, New Cairo, 11835, Egypt
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The COVID-19 pandemic has not only led to a health crisis, but also to economic and labor market crises. In an effort to avert the public health threat, countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) initially put in place some of the world’s most stringent government responses. Assaad's paper explores how labor market outcomes for MENA workers have evolved during the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper uses the ERF COVID-19 MENA Monitor phone surveys in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Sudan, and Tunisia, with waves spanning November 2020 to August 2021. Analyses examine outcomes of employment, unemployment, and labor force participation, along with hours of work and hourly wages. Results show differences in the evolution of pandemic-era labor markets by workers' gender, age, and education, along with their February 2020 labor market status and industry, as well as their pre-pandemic income. Employment rates have largely recovered and hours of work generally increased. Inequality in wages was initially exacerbated by the pandemic, but there has been at least some recovery on this margin as well.
About the Speaker:
Ragui Assaad is professor at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, where he co-chairs the Master of Development Practice program. He has been a research fellow of the Economic Research Forum (ERF) since1994. He is a non-resident research fellow of the Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn, Germany. Assaad’s current research focuses on labor markets and human development in the Arab World, with a focus on youth and gender issues as they relate to education, transition from school-to-work, labor force participation, employment and unemployment, informality, migration, and family formation. Under the auspices of ERF, he led the design and implementation of several nationally-representative longitudinal surveys of labor market conditions in Arab countries. He recently co-edited with Caroline Krafft The Egyptian Labor Market: A Focus on Gender and Economic Vulnerability, Oxford University Press, 2021.
Speakers
Ragui Assaad
Professor at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs
University of Minnesota
Ragui Assaad is a professor at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, where he co-chairs the Master of Development Practice program. He has been a research fellow of the Economic Research Forum (ERF) since1994. He is a non-resident research fellow of the Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn, Germany. Assaad's current research focuses on labor markets and human development in the Arab World, focusing on youth and gender issues related to education, the transition from school to work, labor force participation, employment and unemployment, informality migration, and family formation. Under the auspices of ERF, he led the design and implementation of several nationally-representative longitudinal surveys of labor market conditions in Arab countries. He recently co-edited with Caroline Krafft The Egyptian Labor Market: A Focus on Gender and Economic Vulnerability, Oxford University Press, 2021.