The unemployment rate dropped to 11.98% in 2Q2017 from 12.5% a year earlier, according to a CAPMAS report. The number of Egyptians counted as unemployed dropped by 64k y-o-y to 3.496 mn with the labour force growing by 651k y-o-y to 29.183 mn. It’s the first time since 2011 that the unemployment rate has fallen below 12%, Reuters notes, adding that the improvement fell slightly short of government projections of a 11.7-11.8% rate by the end of the 2016-17 fiscal year. Arqaam’s Reham Eldesoki again does color commentary, telling the wire service, “It's a positive trend that unemployment is going down, especially because most of the unemployed are youth, and this means that we're not too far from reaching a single-digit rate."

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