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Rabat – Despite the efforts made by the Moroccan government in recent years to offer more employment opportunities to young Moroccans, it fell short of achieving its goals.
Between the years 2014 and 2015, the Moroccan economy created 33,000 employment positions, according to a briefing note from the Haut Commissariat au Plan (HCP).
According to the same source, 29,000 jobs were created in urban areas and 4,000 in rural areas, compared to 21,000 a year earlier.
The services sector generated 32,000 jobs, construction created 18,000 jobs and industry, including handicrafts, added 15,000 jobs. The agriculture, forestry and fishing industries lost 32,000 total jobs.
Unemployment fell by 19,000 people, 10,000 in urban areas and 9,000 in rural areas, bringing the total volume of unemployed people to 1.148 million at the national level, which corresponds to a decrease of 1.6 percent over the previous year.
Given the evolution of the labor force, the unemployment rate dropped from 9.9 percent to 9.7 percent nationally, 14.8 percent to 14.6 percent in urban areas and 4.2 percent to 4.1 percent in rural areas. Among men, it dropped from 9.7 percent to 9.4 percent and among women it rose from 10.4% to 10.5%. The unemployment rate of people without diplomas dropped from 4.7 percent to 4.1 percent while the percentage of unemployed graduates has increased from 17.2 percent to 17.3 percent.
In addition, the rate of underemployment, increased by 0.5 percentage points from 10.3 percent to 10.8 percent at the national level. It went from 9.5 percent to 9.9 percent in urban areas and from 11.2 percent to 11.8 percent in rural areas.
Starting this year, the HCP included new indicators on the quality of the workforce, including data about those with excessive working hours and the proportion of young people aged 15 to 24 who are neither in employment nor in education or training (NEETs), as defined by the International Labour Office.
In 2015, the number of employed who have had excessive working hours stood at 41.4 percent at the national level, 46.9 percent in urban areas and 35.9 percent in rural areas. The proportion of young NEETs aged 15 to 24 reached 27.9 percent at the national level, 45.1 percent among young women and 11.4 percent among young men.
Edited by Kelsey Fish
