As they cut back on hiring, Arab bureaucracies are spending more to get less

was never part of Karim’s plan. His father had a comfortable job at Egypt’s national-statistics agency. His grandfather was a civil servant too, hired during the large expansion of the public sector in the era of Gamal Abdel Nasser. Five years ago, armed with his accounting degree from Cairo University, Karim set out in search of his own sinecure doing sums for the state.He never found it. Public hiring has slowed, especially for graduates. “I could have been a cleaner with an accounting degree, but not an accountant,” he quips. Nor is there much work in the private sector, which has shrunk almost every month since he left university. That leaves odd jobs: ride-hailing apps and shifts at a café.