President El-Sisi’s Speech at Celebration Marking Labor Day  

The President’s Speeches
“In the Name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful”

The great people of Egypt,

Ladies and gentlemen,

It gives me pleasure, at the outset, to extend to you all my sincere greetings on the occasion of Labor Day. Many happy returns, with our precious Egypt in progress and prosperity.

The loyal workers of Egypt,

History has always recorded, with letters of light, your well-known role in building this homeland throughout time and eras.

The eternal Egyptian civilization, since the dawn of history until today, speaks of the Egyptians’ reverence for work; a reverence that made us today see these lofty accomplishments achieved in an array of fields by our ancestors, after they were armed with impeccable organization, scientific knowledge, and the spirit of determination, challenge and struggle.

And today, in this world that is characterized by competition and constant change, the importance of these values doubles. Accommodating the highest degrees of modern science, absorbing and adapting it to produce applied technology, establishing and consolidating the skills of discipline and accuracy, unleashing the power of creativity as well as delving into all the requirements of modern management and the advanced industrial development, all these have become factors, without which achieving progress and prosperity for the peoples would be hard.

Then successive global crises occurred; the coronavirus pandemic to the Russian-Ukrainian crisis came to add more hardships to the ones already facing a number of world countries, particularly developing countries, including Egypt.

Therefore, we are always keen on providing utmost support and care to the workers: The minimum wage was increased and we launched and strengthened social protection programs. We are also providing the necessary support for irregular workers, working on integrating people of determination into the labor market, and expanding national projects to create decent job opportunities, in addition to the preparation of the National Employment Strategy (NES).

In light of our huge interest in work and the state of workers and of our dependence on Egypt’s workers to contribute to the comprehensive renaissance that we are working toward, we decided the following:

-To create an emergency relief fund for irregular employment. Social and health accounts dues shall be transferred to it, thus they would be invested and used in emergencies and crises for irregular workers in a sustainable manner. This, in turn, would help maximize the social and developmental return of the fund.

-To start activating the fund immediately once all legal procedures are completed by disbursing emergency funding of 1,000 Egyptian Pounds for irregular workers, who do not benefit from social protection programs.

-To issue a new document, “Aman” certificate, which was previously issued in 2017 to cover life insurance and work injuries for irregular workers.

-To stress on all private sector establishments, the public sector and the public business sector, to employ persons with disabilities to represent 5% of their workforce, as per the law, and to continue working on developing their skills and integrating them into the labor market.

-To have the Supreme Council for Social Dialogue in the field of employment study the draft labor law presented to the House of Representatives, in the presence of workers’ and employers’ representatives, and agree on its final version. This shall guarantee that workers’ rights are preserved and ensure a work environment that is conducive to investment.

-To promote compliance with international labor standards and ensure that labor legislation and its implementation comply with international labor conventions ratified by Egypt.

-To have the Ministry of Manpower launch the national platform for labor market information, expeditiously.

-To have ministries and concerned authorities, in coordination with the private sector, rapidly finalize the procedures aimed at achieving gender equality in the field of employment; ensuring a safe work environment; increasing women’s employment rates, integrating them into the labor market and developing their skills; and protecting working women and ensuring that they strike a balance between their job requirements and family duties. These efforts are part of endeavors to activate the national plan for gender equality in the field of employment that was launched in 2022.

-To launch a national campaign to improve the mental image in society of the value and importance of work for the individual and society, and encourage young people to integrate themselves into self-employment and entrepreneurship and to establish their small, medium and micro enterprises.

-Ministries and concerned authorities shall prepare for future jobs, identify the required occupations in the future labor market and the skills needed for them, and work to develop human resources skills, commensurate with the future of jobs and the needs of the labor market.

Egypt’s valued workers,

Building the homeland and the future cannot take place optimally without the hands of Egypt’s loyal workers, their proper awareness and constantly evolving skills. This requires the government to make the necessary coordination with all relevant institutions, to expand training programs for young people of both sexes and to continue to develop training centers under the umbrella of the Presidential Initiative “Decent Life” or “Hayah Karima”.

And I tell you that: together we are able, God willing, to continue to work and progress with a determination to succeed and trust in God’s blessings for us. Let Egypt live always and forever, a dear and precious homeland that deserves from us all loyalty and sacrifice.