At nine in the morning, Mohamed Ghaith begins his working day at one of Egypt’s news websites, on a shift that lasts 8 hours, five days a week, for a monthly salary of EGP 7,000. On paper, the working day ends at five in the evening, but reality is different.
The pressure of the news, the succession of assignments and the need to finish stories before publication make leaving the office on time something that happens only rarely. The hours stretch beyond the end of the shift, and sometimes Mohamed finds himself facing a simple choice: either leave and abandon his work, or stay to finish it.
Ghaith is forced to order food while at work, and perhaps extra drinks that help him concentrate, such as coffee or tea, which strains his meagre salary. The young journalist tells Zawia3 that getting to work requires spending on transport, as does the journey back, in addition to the extras he needs while at work, such as clean water and topping up his phone and internet package to communicate with news sources.
The drain on an employee’s salary sometimes begins before he reaches his workplace. A transport fare he pays on the way there, and another on the way back, then a breakfast he needs during the first hours of work, a hot drink or a bottle of water, and perhaps an extra meal if the working day stretches into the evening hours. Each item may seem limited when calculated on its own, but its daily repetition turns it into a fixed monthly bill deducted from the salary: the employee does not spend his full salary on his needs and those of his family, but is forced to set aside part of it to fund his presence in the job itself.
Each item may seem limited on its own, but its daily repetition turns it into a monthly bill deducted from the salary.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) highlights the length of working hours in Egypt compared with international rates, noting that a large proportion of employees work hours that exceed the norm. The effect of longer working hours extends to higher expenses for the employee: staying longer at work reduces the chances of eating home-cooked food, and pushes the worker to buy additional meals and drinks during the day, which raises the work-related food bill. Time pressure and fatigue may also push some employees to choose faster or more expensive means of transport to shorten the journey and avoid hardship.
A Salary That Pays the Price of Getting to the Job
The costs of reaching the workplace and staying there are most pronounced in the big cities, where residential areas lie far from the employment centres in the Fifth Settlement, Sheikh Zayed, the Smart Village and 6th of October, making geographic location an influential factor in determining disposable income, as economist Hany Tawfik says, adding that the daily cost of commuting represents a large share of the income of a low-paid employee, unlike those on high incomes.
Nor does the matter stop at transport; it extends to the food and drinks that the employee is forced to buy during working hours, as Tawfik adds to Zawia3, noting that the repetition of these expenses over a month shrinks the margin available to cover rent, bills and other family needs.
A Law That Sets Working Hours but Does Not See the Bill for Showing Up
Labour Law No. 14 of 2025 sets actual working hours at eight hours a day or 48 hours a week, under Article 117, and meal and rest periods are not included in them. Article 118 requires rest totalling no less than one hour, and that the worker not work more than five consecutive hours, with the exceptions determined by the minister. Article 119 sets a general limit of ten hours between the start and the end of the working day, and allows twelve hours for some work of a special nature. Overtime for unusual necessities or exceptional circumstances is regulated by Article 121, which prohibits exceeding twelve hours of presence at the establishment. This differs from Article 122, which concerns posting the schedule of working and rest hours.
An employee’s presence at the workplace may extend longer than the actual working hours, so rest and meal periods fall within the time during which he needs to spend on his daily needs. The law does not set a general, unified food and transport allowance for all jobs; but it obliges the employer, under Article 271, to provide transport at its own expense when ordinary transport does not reach the workplace, and food and housing in areas remote from urban settlements, in accordance with the rules regulating this. Article 112 also prohibits obliging the worker to buy food, goods or services from specific shops or from what the employer provides. Employment contracts or collective agreements may grant additional benefits.
The Work Meal Turns into a Monthly Bill
Thus, in many jobs the cost of transport and food remains a burden borne by the employee’s income, and time pressure coincides with a change in his pattern of food spending and fewer opportunities to prepare food at home. For example, a study published in 2022 relied on data from 14,807 participants in Australia, and found an association between the time an individual spends at work and commuting and the frequency of buying food outside the home. In a model tracking changes within the same individuals, each additional hour was associated with an increase of about 0.6% in purchase frequency, that is, about 6% for ten additional hours. The measurement concerns work-related time and commuting together, and does not prove that more hours alone cause a similar change in every employee, or that the same percentage applies to Egypt.
Official inflation data do not measure the cost of an employee’s meal specifically, but they track the price pressures surrounding it: the annual inflation rate for the country as a whole stood at 12.7% in August 2026, while prices in the restaurants and hotels division rose 13.4% year on year, compared with 6.5% for food and beverages. This reading differs from the urban inflation rate. Aggregate indicators also do not determine the size of the increase in any particular meal; but they help in understanding the different pressures on those who buy ready-made food and those who prepare food at home.
The chart shows price ranges collected by the journalist from news archives, not national averages or a series for a single standard-size product in one shop; prices may therefore differ between periods, shops and portion sizes.
Among the prices monitored by the report in 2026, a regular fava bean sandwich starts at about EGP 10 with the most basic ingredients, and reaches EGP 20 with some additions, while a single box of koshari ranges between about EGP 35 and EGP 80 depending on the size and the shop. These are examples from journalistic monitoring and not a statistical average for all regions of Egypt. Every additional EGP 10 an employee spends daily over 22 working days means EGP 220 a month, or 3.1% of a salary of EGP 7,000.
Zawia3 analysed scenarios for what an employee pays for food and drinks during work, on the basis of 22 days and a monthly salary of EGP 7,000. Spending EGP 50 a day on breakfast and a drink equals EGP 1,100 a month, or 15.7% of the salary. If the day gets longer and approaches twelve hours, and another meal such as koshari is added, spending may reach EGP 100 a day, that is, EGP 2,200 a month or 31.4% of the salary. These are illustrative calculations tied to assumed prices and choices, and do not mean that all employees spend the same amount.
In the jobs the report covers, presence may extend to between eight and twelve hours depending on the shift system, but this does not make all hours of presence lawful actual working hours without conditions. In cases of overtime regulated by Article 121, the compensation is no less than the original hourly wage plus 35% by day and 70% by night. The general rules on eight actual hours a day or 48 hours a week, and on meal and rest periods, remain the basis for understanding the difference between the length of the day at the establishment and overtime for which a wage is due.
Who Bears the Cost of Food and Transport?
In France, the employer is generally not obliged to provide meal vouchers, and may subsidise meals by various means. When the voucher system is applied, the employer bears between 50% and 60% of their face value, and the worker pays the rest. The employer sets the value of the voucher, while the sum of EUR 25 represents the maximum daily use of vouchers, not a ceiling on the value of a single voucher. This is an important distinction when comparing the French benefit with what may be available to an Egyptian employee.
French regulations also oblige the employer to provide a suitable place to eat. Establishments with fewer than fifty workers are required to have a place that allows food to be eaten in healthy and safe conditions, while establishments with fifty or more workers require a place equipped for storing, refrigerating and heating food, with drinking water, tables and seats. Providing this place does not necessarily mean that the meal itself is free.
In India, the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020, which came into force as part of the package of labour codes in November 2025, includes an obligation to provide canteen facilities in establishments employing a hundred or more workers, including contract labour, in accordance with the regulating rules. This reflects a trend towards including access to food among the responsibilities of establishments, but it does not mean that every meal is provided to the worker free of charge.
Brazil relies on the Workers’ Food Programme “PAT”, which encourages establishments to provide meals or food benefits through tax incentives, giving priority to those on low incomes. The Transport Voucher Law also regulates the bearing of public transport costs between home and work: the worker bears a contribution of up to 6% of his basic wage, and the employer pays whatever exceeds it of the commuting cost due under the programme. This regulation concerns the means of transport and the eligibility conditions set by law, so it does not represent open-ended compensation for any means the employee chooses.
In France, the employer bears at least half the cost of the eligible public transport subscriptions that the worker uses between his place of residence and the workplace, and this can include more than one means needed for the journey. The obligation concerns subscriptions under its conditions, not the automatic reimbursement of half the value of every single ticket.
From Advertised Salary to Disposable Income
An employee’s income passes through three stages before the amount available for spending is determined, as economist Dr Hassan El-Sadi says, adding that the first stage begins with the gross salary before deductions, then the worker arrives at the net salary after taxes and social insurance contributions, if any, are deducted, before he himself bears the costs of transport, food and drinks related to his attendance at work.
Comparing advertised salaries does not necessarily give a complete picture of workers’ financial situation, as El-Sadi adds to Zawia3, since the costs of getting to work and the food and drinks it requires point to the inadequacy of the minimum wage in providing an income that meets the needs of the employee and his family, because the worker is, quite simply, forced to allocate part of his salary to transport and daily meals, as he describes it.
Comparing advertised salaries does not necessarily give a complete picture of the resources available to workers.
Thus, an increase in wages does not mean an improvement in the worker’s income by the same value, according to El-Sadi, who explains this by saying that Egypt does not see a wage increase unless it is accompanied by an economic policy that devours that illusory gain, such as a rise in fuel prices or the cancellation of in-kind subsidies, noting that an increase of this kind is necessarily accompanied by higher transport and food prices, and so the increase disappears between “the microbuses and the restaurants”, as he describes it.
In an example that shows the need to distinguish between announcement and implementation, an increase in the minimum wage for state employees to EGP 8,000 was announced in April 2026, an increase of about 14.3% compared with EGP 7,000. But implementation began on 1 July 2026, under Prime Ministerial Decree No. 2170 of 2026, not on 1 April. The announcement was preceded by a rise in the prices of fuel and vehicle gas on 10 March, at rates ranging roughly between 14% and 30% depending on the product. Nor does this decree automatically raise the minimum wage in the private sector to the same value; the decision concerning it raised it to EGP 7,000 as of March 2025.
El-Sadi points to the concept of the “reservation wage”, that is, the lowest wage at which a person will accept a job, an economic concept that differs from the binding legal minimum. He says: “When the costs of getting to work and of living rise, the value of the job offer declines, because compensating the worker for the time, effort and cost incurred is neglected.” He believes that measuring income should begin with legal deductions such as taxes and insurance, then daily work expenses. The report takes an approximate example of deductions of about EGP 880 from a salary of EGP 7,000, but this is not a uniform amount that must be deducted from every salary at this value; the result changes depending on the insured wage, exemptions and the components of the wage. The scenario percentages here are therefore calculated against a reference salary of EGP 7,000, not as an actual payslip for every worker. Separating these stages helps in understanding disposable income in a wage system that El-Sadi describes as fragile.
Transport May Take More Than an Eighth of the Salary
The cost of getting to the workplace is not a marginal item in an employee’s budget, especially after the increase in fuel prices in March 2026 and the subsequent raising of fares for means of transport and mass transit. For example, the fares of some means of transport, as well as public transport, increased: the price of a regular bus ticket reached EGP 13, and of a regular minibus EGP 19. Metro ticket prices also rose, reaching EGP 10 for up to 9 stations, EGP 12 for up to 16 stations, EGP 15 for up to 23 stations, and EGP 20 for longer distances, while an electric bus ticket (for example: Pitcho – Imbaba) costs EGP 25 per trip.
Zawia3’s calculation, based on 22 working days and two trips a day, shows that a fare of EGP 25 each way means EGP 1,100 a month, or 15.7% of a salary of EGP 7,000. The example applies to the means of transport whose ticket costs this amount, and does not equal the average spending of all public transport users. The calculations assume a single means of transport in each direction, without switching between more than one means or adding journeys from distant neighbourhoods. At the lower-cost end, EGP 10 per trip means EGP 440 a month, or about 6.3% of the reference salary.
A working paper by the US Census Bureau explains the importance of deducting work expenses from household resources when calculating the Supplemental Poverty Measure, because the money spent on getting to the job and doing it does not remain available for other needs. In its application to the 2015 estimates, updating the estimates of these expenses using more recent survey data increased the poverty rate by 0.3 percentage points. The figure concerns the effect of updating the estimate compared with the previous estimate, not the full effect of all work expenses. The paper highlights how a difference in calculation method can change the picture of the resources available to a household.
Nor is the cost of going to work limited to the money paid for transport; it includes the economic value of the time the employee spends on the road. A study published in 2009, based on data from the Netherlands on job search and commuting, estimated the average marginal cost of an additional hour of commuting at about EUR 17. The figure rests on the study’s context and its assumptions about time and cost, and is not a current estimate of an hour of commuting for an employee in Egypt, but it shows that reading the cash transport bill alone overlooks part of the burden.
In-Kind Benefits Change the Value of a Job
Jobs are not equal in the cost of getting there and staying, even when they pay workers the same cash salary. Mayar Hassan works at “Concentrix“, a foreign company inside Egypt, which provides transport and free drinks, as well as suhoor and iftar meals throughout the month of Ramadan, as Mayar tells Zawia3.
The economic value of a job is not determined by the cash salary alone; it includes the benefits provided to workers, such as transport to work, meals and healthcare, as human resources expert Mohamed Salem says, adding that these services reduce the expenses the employee bears from his income without necessarily appearing as a direct cash increase in the salary.
These benefits take on particular importance in sectors that rely on large numbers of employees or on a shift system, such as call centres, where the cost of getting to the workplace is a recurring item in the worker’s budget, as Salem adds to Zawia3.
The daily expenses linked to a job affect the decision to stay in it, as Salem says, especially when transport and food costs accumulate alongside long working hours. He estimates, on the basis of his professional opinion, that more than 90% of jobs in Egypt need in-kind benefits to be factored into the total cost of employment. The report does not present this percentage as the result of a statistical survey of the labour market. He notes that providing group buses or low-cost meals may help reduce absenteeism and people leaving their jobs.
With every additional hour at work, Ghaith adds a new expense. The meal and the drinks are not part of his daily budget, but expenses incurred because he is still at work. As the days repeat, the fava bean sandwich and the box of koshari turn into fixed items in a monthly budget that does not exceed EGP 7,000, as if they were a tax imposed for getting his work done.
