An innovative Employability Programme aimed at supporting youth employment in Egypt is underway in Cairo and Hurghada, with scope to scale it at country level.

The project, run by the Sustainable Hospitality Alliance, aims to develop a model for Egypt’s hospitality sector, especially hotel and F&B businesses, to get more young people working in the industry.

The project is supported by the Special Initiative “Decent Work for a Just Transition” of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), which is implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, among others, and also operates under the Invest for Jobs brand. Participating hotels include those from Marriott, IHG Hotels & Resorts, Four Seasons and Radisson Hotel Group. Local hotel and F&B brands will be invited to engage in the project too.

Egypt has a robust hospitality sector, generating around 389 billion Egyptian pounds to the GDP prior to the pandemic.  According to a statement by the Egyptian Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS) in April 2022, Egypt’s unemployment rate stood at 7.4% in 2021. Young people aged 15 to 29 years who make up 15% of the total labour force, face high unemployment rates – 10.8% for males and 35.9% among females.

The Employability Programme has been developed with a focus on achieving equity for women. In this project the Alliance team will work closely with the local training partners at each stage to ensure activities are designed to address needs and remove impediments where possible so that young women can participate fully.

The objectives for this programme are to:

  • Develop collaborative linkages across hotel and F&B businesses and local training organisations.
  • Establish a local partnership structure to manage and deliver sector endorsed core soft skills and practical skills for entry level hospitality jobs.
  • Establish a local leadership group to own the programme, including metrics, learnings, and adaptation of the programme for high quality outcomes

This project is part of the Alliance’s Net Positive Accelerators – one of the new initiatives which are part of the Alliance’s new five-year strategic plan. The strategy, launched earlier this month, promotes Net Positive Hospitality for People and Planet. The accelerator programme aims to inspire the Alliance’s members and leverage their footprints and operations to launch collaborative pilot initiatives targeting systemic issues in specific destinations. The aim is to capture critical learnings and potential for scaling and replication, which will be disseminated to the broader industry.

Sustainable Hospitality Alliance CEO, Glenn Mandziuk, said:

“This programme provides Egypt’s hospitality sector with the opportunity to benefit from young people entering the workforce. I’m delighted to be working with GIZ to establish a collaborative programme that will inspire the rest of Egypt’s hospitality industry into investing in its young people, ultimately benefiting the country as a whole.”

Thomas Rolf, Head of Programme at GIZ, said:

“Our goal is to create decent jobs in our partner countries while contributing to a sustainable transformation of economy and society and at the same time empowering women and girls. I am confident that this cooperation will help us to meet these targets.”

To find out more about the Sustainable Hospitality Alliance’s employability work, visit https://sustainablehospitalityalliance.org/our-work/youth-employment/, and for more information about the Special Initiative “Decent Work for a Just Transition”, visit https://invest-for-jobs.com/.