Reading the future requires to recognize the status quo of the positions of
work force in agriculture and the related changes during the last period. It also
helps in analysing the probable effects to carry out the programs of structural
adjustment with the complementry procedures such as finishing the rental relation
between the owner and the tenant, in approaching the picture of near future at the
begining of 21st century. The abstracts availed from carrying out the structural
adjustment may help to spotlight on the future of employment and unemployment.
At last, recognition of the Egyptian agriculture specification and the structural
adjustment programs may enable to give more clear picture for the agricultural
employment future.
The Egyptian agricultural sector is one of the most economic sectors in using
work force where it avails about 28.5% of the work force total in the various
national economic sectors. In the light of this importance, it is required to
recognize the status quo of the agricultural work force to be able answering the
question: Is there surplus or deficit in this work force?
The research aims at studying the status quo of the work force in the
agricultural sector to recognize what available and needed from this employment,
in addition to balancing the demand and need to estimate the surplus or deficit
from human work in the agricultural sector and at last to forecast the volume of
employment necessary for this sector.
The study used the method of statistic and descreptive analysis to achieve the
results. All the necessary data have been obtained mainly from the Economic
Affairs Sector, Ministry of Agriculture, besides the studies relevant to the research
subject.
The study showed relativeely static in the number of those working in
agriculture during the period 1980/1981-2002/2003, as this number raised only
24.8% with annual rate about 1%, meanwhile the number of workers in the other
sectors raised to 87.4% during the same period with annual rate about 3.8% this
due to the high wages in these unagricultural sectors compared to efforts exerted
in the agriculture sector that lead to increase employment in the unagricultural
sectors.
The study also showed that the Egyptian agriculture characterized with wide
base from tenants having object specification in educational level and this
represent obstacle to apply agricultural technology, whence it affects negatively
on the possibilities of increasing the agricultural production besides the large ratio
of the tenanats are at old ages.
The estimation of the agricultural sector requirements from employment
during 2002 was 4.432 million worker equivalent to 1.307 milliard day/work,
meanwhile the volume of need from work force in the same year was 5.119
million worker equivalent to 1.1510 milliard day/work, this means that there was
surplus in work force about 3.2 milliard day/work equivalent to 0.687 million
worker represent about 15.42% of the volume of need in the mentioned year. This
refers to deficit in working in the agriculture sector from one side and work
season on the another.
The study of future prediction for agricultural employment showed the
increased demand on employment in the agricultural sector about 764 million
day/work than the need during 2017 in absolute case.
Finally, the most important recommendations of the study are:
1-Taking act to eliminate illiteracy especially among workers in the agriculture
sector.
2-The base of the agricultural producers especially the small ones and the
agricultural workers who characterized with specification not respond
quickly to possibilities of introducing new technologies in production and
this requires more studies to overcome this phenomenon.
3-Expansion in developing the non-farm economic activities to face recession
in the possibilities of agricultural sector to accommodate more of work
force.
4-The study showed that there is surplus in the agricultural work force during
that year. It is worth mentioning that in the estimation of demand and need
concerning work, the bases of estimation of animal production employment
are not correct. There for, it is necessary to conduct a study aims at
limitation of volume and type of demand on agricultural work for animal
production under various agricultural systems to enable obtain suitable
treatments for these systems to be generalyzed.
5-The state must provide labor opportunities in the intensive labor projects in
the new lands such as utility from the second products of some agricultural
crops and the general projects for developing irrigation systems which
depend mainly on employment.