The last two items show the impact of the Structural Adjustment policy aimed
at reducing subsidies and the government share in social services. One of the
great problems resulting from Nasser’s economic policy was the enormously
inflated number of people employed in the public sector. Millions would have
been left unemployed if the Structural Adjustment Programmes had been put
into practice immediately. So the transformation was carried out gradually;
for example, the state guarantee of employment for all university graduates,
which had existed for forty years, was progressively eroded. The low salaries
the state pays today make jobs in the public sector less attractive. A state-
employed engineer, who formerly would have received a relatively respectable
salary, is nowadays paid so little that he would normally prefer to look for
employment in a private business or work as a waiter in a tourist hotel.