Millions of retiring Arab civil servants need not be replaced
数百万即将退休的阿拉伯公务员不需要人来顶替
Governments could save billions if they resist the urge to hire more
政府如果能抑制住招募更多公务员的冲动,就能节省数十亿美元
At a municipal parking garage in Cairo, a row of freshly painted machines wait to dispense tickets to drivers. But the machines are turned off. Attendants stand next to them and hand out tickets manually.
It is one of many useless government jobs in the Egyptian capital. Stamping passports at the airport can be a three-person affair. Offices are full of functionaries who make photocopies or brew tea (few do both).
More than 5m Egyptians work in the civil service. Each serves fewer than 20 citizens, if “serves” is the right word. Other developing countries get by with a far less populous public sector.
The president, Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, thinks little of his workforce. At a conference in May he suggested that 1m employees could do the work now accomplished by 5m. (Anyone who has dealt with Egyptian bureaucracy would probably agree.)
He worries that firing them would cause unrest, however. Instead, his government has a better solution: do nothing and let the bureaucracy shrink itself. About 2.2m of Egypt’s civil servants are in the top two pay brackets, which usually require decades of service to reach.
The prime minister, Mustafa Madbouly, wagers that at least 35% of the workforce will retire within a decade.
总理穆斯塔法·马德布利断言,至少35%的公务员将在10年内退休。
That would reduce a wage bill that consumes 27% of government revenue, freeing billions for badly needed investment. Many of these jobs plainly do not need to be filled.
Egypt is dragging itself into the digital age. Citizens can renew their national ID cards online, and other documents will be available later this year.
埃及正在进入数字时代。公民可以在网上更换新的身份证,在今年晚些时候,其他证件也将可以在线办理。
The state is installing new electricity meters that can be recharged via smart cards. Even the notoriously archaic courts are buying computers. All of this will reduce the need for cadres to collect bills and scribble notes in ledgers.
Many Arab countries are in a similar situation. Cushy state sinecures were once seen as a birthright. Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak bloated Egypt’s public sector to keep the middle class loyal.
Gulf governments started a long hiring spree during the oil boom of the 1970s. For a generation, though, public-sector hiring has not kept pace with population growth. Though Egypt’s workforce has swollen by 7.7m since 2005, the bureaucracy registered a net increase of just 190,000.
Hiring has slowed in Saudi Arabia too, but a whopping 45% of citizens still work for the state (in the OECD, a club of mostly rich countries, the average is 18%). As in Egypt they skew old, with 31% aged 45 and over versus just 7% under 30.
The crown prince wants to steer young Saudis into the private sector, but few firms want to hire them on the cushy terms they demand. Over 30% of under-30s are jobless.