Egypt's Frustrated Aspirants

[00:00:00]In Egypt before the 2011 revolution, the better you did in school, the longer you waited for a job after graduating. An ill survey found university graduates had the highest unemployment rate in the youth bracket at 34%. For less educated youth, it was 2.4%. The credential was an anti-credential. The Egyptian government had spent decades promising every university graduate a public sector job. That promise created a bloated bureaucracy and a population that saw the guarantee as a birthright.

[00:00:32]Then the state opened the gates wider.

[00:00:34]Egypt added six new state universities in the 2000s alone, bringing the total from 12 to 18. The 2010 to 2011 cohort of graduates was 37% larger than the 2001 to 2002 cohort. The Egyptian census of 2010 found that 15 to 29 year olds made up 46% of the adult population but accounted for 77.5% of the unemployed. Meanwhile, grain prices jumped 30% between 2010 and 2011.

[00:01:05]Bread prices rose 37%. The state's food subsidies were running at 8% of GDP and 44% of total government expenses. While El Gonin, the Google executive whose Facebook page helped spark the January 25th protest, had a bachelor's in computer engineering from Cairo University and a master's in finance from the American University in Cairo.

[00:01:27]He left Egypt for a job in Dubai because the Egyptian economy didn't have a place for him. The credentialed procariat was the spark. The price of bread was the gasoline. When both hit at the same time, no regime survives that combination.