Introduction and Overview of the Country
Egypt, Jumhūriyyat Miṣr al-ʿArabiyyah (Arab Republic of Egypt), is a country located in the northeastern corner of Africa, where its land border Libya on the west, Sudan on the south, and Israel on the northeast. Its official language is Arabic with the official religion of the country is Islam. On 2019, Egypt has a total population of 98,976,000 people with total area of 1,010,408 sq km and a density of 98 people per sq km (Holt and Goldschmidt, 2018). Egypt’s heartland, the Nile River valley and delta, was the home of one of the principal civilizations of the ancient Middle East and, like Mesopotamia farther east, was the site of one of the world’s earliest urban and literate societies (Holt and Goldschmidt, 2018).
Nile river is one of the longest river in Egypt where it runs 1,200km of its northward course through the country and it cuts its way through the desert that divided the desert plateau into 2 sections – The Western Desert and The Eastern Desert (Holt and Goldschmidt, 2018). Both deserts have a really distinctive characteristics as the Western Desert is arid and without wadis or is mainly shaped with dry beds of seasonal rivers and the Eastern Desert is extensively shaped with wadis and rugged mountains.
The capital city of Egypt is Cairo, where one of the world’s largest urban agglomerations, and manufacturing and trade have increasingly outstripped agriculture as the largest sectors of the national economy (Holt and Goldschmidt, 2018). Egypt largest industries are textiles, food processing, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals. Egypt also relies on its tourism sector where traditionally it contributes a lot to its national economy, but recently it has been greatly decreased and unstable due the civil unrest in the region.
Recruitment Practices
Egypt is a developing economy with a growing population, relatively high unemployment, low-education levels and skills shortages in the developing sectors of the economy (El-Kot and Leat, 2008). In Egypt, HR departments have to understand the culture and workplace norms really well before they begin recruiting employees to help the company find the most talented potential employee.
To recruit new employee, companies in Egypt must follow the labor laws during the recruiting process as company have the right to collect personal information related to employment application, compensation, and benefits (Globalization Partners, 2020). The labor law that was published in 2003, protects employee from discrimination based on gender, language, origin, or religion so, companies must avoid any discriminatory practices during recruitment process.
In Egypt employer have two choices for staffing their company — hire locals or expats. However, the Companies Law of Egypt requires you to mostly hire locals, as only 10% of your staff can be foreigners with salaries that do not exceed 20% of total wages and in any free zones, 25% of your total employees can be foreigners (Globalization Partners, 2020).
There are few types of recruitment in Egypt that are commonly used by companies and organizations to recruit new employee:
1.Direct application
In direct application, jobseekers usually apply directly to the company website or by handing in their CV or resume directly to the company. The job posts are usually posted by employers in the internet or the newspaper advertisement.
2. Local recruitment agency
Local recruitment agency plays a big role in recruiting potential employee in many Egyptian companies as it can save both time and money. Local recruitment agency can help to lighten the load for companies when it comes to screening potential job seekers, so companies can devote their time to focus only on the most qualified candidates.
3.Online recruitment or E-Recruitment
By using online recruitment or e-recruitment, it creates more awareness to the open positions that are open in a company or organization and allows companies to obtain more information about potential candidates online. Online recruitment has several methods to recruit potential employee online, but the most common way that many Egyptian companies are using is the online job sites. The online job site is a website that deals with employment and careers. The most popular online job sites that are used by jobseeker in Egypt are: (Moore, 2017)
- Wuzzuf – the country leader for online job site in Egypt. Many jobseekers are using this online platform to search for a job as it provides more job options for jobseekers.
- Bayt – the most common multinational job board in the Middle East.
- Neuvoo – an international aggregator that is operating in 60+ countries including Egypt.
- OLX – referred as an Egyptian Craiglist for job seekers searching for a lower job positions with less requirements.
Selection Practices
Selection practices in Egypt are direct and most Egyptian companies will make their selections for potential candidates based on combination their skills, competencies, experience, and motivation. The selection practice in Egypt is usually broken down into 6 stages: (Geneva as Société Générale de Surveillance, 2018)
1. Application screening
The first step is application screening where all applications received are considered and carefully evaluated by company’s human resource department staff members to ensure that every candidate meet all the qualifications for the position.
2.Initial telephone interview
Potential candidates that have the same interest shown in the application are called the company’s human resource department. The initial telephone interview purpose is to find out more about the candidates and arrange a date for the first round of interview.
3.First round of interview
The first round of interview is as face to face interviews conducted by a panel, including the hiring manager. The purpose of the first round of interview is to find out more about the candidate career interests, educational background, skills, experiences, as well as giving potential candidates the chance to learn more about the company or organization.
4.Assessments
After the first round of interview, potential candidates are invited to participate in a psychometric assessment that allows company to better understand candidates’ motivations. Assessments test is usually carried out in the same day as the first round of interview.
5.Second round of interview
After successfully passed the first interview and the psychometric assessment, candidates will be invited to attend a second interview or its usually called the interview round. The purpose of the second interview is for the company to assess potential candidates’ skills and allowing the human resource manager to get to know the candidates further.
6.Employment offer
Based on the performance of the candidate during the interview rounds, then the HR representative will make the final decision on an offer. They will also send you an employment offer and answer any questions you may have.
Miscellaneous Information
Religion in the workplace
Religion is common in many Egyptian workplaces and Islam is the most common religion in Egypt. Many Muslim workers will ask their right to pray in the company’s space and companies must respect and allow them to practice their religions, even during workhours.
Employment contract
Hiring employees in Egypt needs to start with an employment contract that’s either fixed-term or indefinite. Egypt allows fixed-term contracts for up to five years, but employees who work after those five years are considered to have indefinite-term contracts (Globalization Partner, 2020).
All employment contracts need to be written in triplicate and Arabic. In the contracts, employer should include certain employment terms such as compensation, benefits, termination requirements, and it should also include salary and compensation amounts in Egyptian pounds.
Working conditions
1.Working Hours
The legal maximum working hours are eight hours a day or forty-eight hours a week, excluding meals or rest breaks. The worker shall not carry on working more than five unbroken hours and every 5 hours, employees are entitled to a minimum of one hour of rest break (Trannet, 2019).
2.Annual Vacation
Employees are entitled to annual paid leave of three weeks (twenty-one days) after a full year of service and this number increases to one month (thirty days) after a decade of consecutive employment (Moore, 2017). The thirty days’ vacation also is required for any worker over the age of fifty regardless of their number of years working in the company. Based on the new Egyptian labor law, the Egyptian government must also provide thirteen paid public holidays per year (Trannet, 2019).
3.Termination
In Egypt, in case of termination of the contract without legitimate and adequate justification, either party shall compensate the other for the harm incurred and the compensation shall not be less than the wage of two months of the comprehensive wage for each year of service (Trannet, 2020). The New Labor Law states that the contract of employment shall terminate at the expiry of a fixed-term contract or at the completion of the task for which the contract was concluded and both parties can terminate an open-ended contract, provided that the notice period as well as writing procedures is respected. However, an employer cannot dismiss a worker except in cases where the worker commits a serious offense. In the case of a dismissal due to an offense, before taking any decision the employer must submit a request to the committee, which will approve or disapprove this dismissal (Trannet, 2020). If the committee disapproves, then the worker is reinstated in the employee previous position.
Bibliography
El‐Kot, G. and Leat, M. (2008). A survey of recruitment and selection practices in Egypt. Education, Business and Society: Contemporary Middle Eastern Issues, 1(3), pp.200–212.
Geneva as Société Générale de Surveillance (2018). Recruitment Process. [online] www.sgs.com.eg. Available at: https://www.sgs.com.eg/en/our-company/careers/recruitment-process [Accessed 24 Oct. 2020].
Globalization Partners (2020). Egypt Hiring & Recruitment Outsourcing | Global PEO Hiring Services for Egypt. [online] Globalization Partners. Available at: https://www.globalization-partners.com/globalpedia/egypt-employer-of-record/hiring/ [Accessed 24 Oct. 2020].
Holt, P.M. and Goldschmidt, A.E. (2018). Egypt | History, Map, Flag, Population, & Facts. In: Encyclopædia Britannica. [online] Available at: https://www.britannica.com/place/Egypt.
Moore, C. (2017). How to recruit in Egypt. [online] Jobboard Finder News. Available at: https://www.jobboardfinder.com/news/how-to-recruit-in-egypt/ [Accessed 24 Oct. 2020].
Trannet, M. (2019). Egyptian Labor Law. [online] Hg.org. Available at: https://www.hg.org/legal-articles/egyptian-labor-law-31577.