Morocco’s Unemployment Rate Up in Third Quarter of 2015

Rabat – Morocco’s unemployment rate reached 10.1 percent in the third quarter of 2015, an increase of 0.5 percent compared to the same period in 2014, according to a report on the 3Q 2015 results for the labor market issued by the Haut Commissariat au Plan (HCP).

The number of unemployed people in the labor force grew by 5.8 percent, increasing from 1,140,000 people registered as unemployed in 2014 to 1,206,000 jobless in the same period in 2015, according to HCP.

The unemployment rate in urban areas rose from 14.5 percent to 15.1 percent, and in rural areas from 4.1 percent to 4.3percent.

Unemployment is acute for young people holding diplomas and those aged between 15 and 24 years old (collectively, 21.4 percent), and for those living in the countryside (39.3 percent). The highest unemployment rates were reported among diploma holders (up 1.2 points) and young people aged between 15 and 24 years old (up 0 .8 point), underlined HCP.

The unemployed labor force also includes discouraged workers of legal employment age who are not actively seeking employment or who did not find employment after long-term unemployment. In the 2015 third quarter results, those unemployed persons accounted for 79,000 of the unemployed, or 6.6 percent of the total compared to 5.4 percent last year, according to the same source.

Edited by Elisabeth Myers