Rabat – The High Commission of Planning’s report on the job market shows alarming statistics on job creation in Morocco.
The report published on Wednesday, August 7, shows that Morocco’s national economy created 7,000 job opportunities in the second quarter of 2019 compared to the much higher 117,000 in the same period in 2018.
HCP said that the job market was marked by a “further decline” in employment rates in the second quarter of 2019.
The number of people of employable age grew faster than the number of people who are employed, the report found.
“The working-age population (15 years and older) increased, compared to the second quarter of 2018 at a greater rate (1.6%) than the labor force (-0.6%),” HCP wrote.
The report said that the participation rate in the job market dropped from 47% to 46% between the second quarter of 2019 and that of 2018.
HCP said that the employment rate fell at the national level from 42.8% to 42.1%. The employment rate dropped from 55% to 53.5% in rural areas, while it stagnated at 35.9% in urban areas.
The HCP said that in the “forest and fisheries agriculture” sector has lost 176,000 jobs, 170,000 in rural areas and 6,000 in urban areas between the second quarter of 2018 and the same period of 2019. This is compared to an average annual creation of 38,000 jobs over the last two years and a loss of 175,000 in 2016.
“The construction sector has lost 27,000 jobs at the national level, 15,000 in urban areas and 12,000 in rural areas, compared with an average annual creation of 22,000 jobs in the last three years,” added the report.
In July, HCP said that one of the main reasons why Morocco is struggling to curb employment is the gap between employment prospects and the number of graduates from Moroccan universities and vocational schools.
Between 2011 and 2017, the number of jobs created fluctuated between over 75,000 and approximately 100,000 (97,000 in most years), HCP said.
Unemployment decrease
Despite the lack of job creations, HCP shows positive statistics on the unemployment rate during the second quarter of 2019.
HCP finds that the unemployment rate stood at 8.5% in the second quarter of 209, compared with 9.1% a year earlier.
“The number of unemployed people has declined from 1,103,000 to 1,026,000, following a drop of 77,000 in unemployed people,” the HCP said.
The unemployment rate in urban areas declined from 13.7% to 12.4%. The rate of unemployment, however, rose in rural areas by 3.3% (+3%).
HCP’s report shows that the largest decrease in unemployment was “observed among graduate students, adults aged between 25 and 34, and young people aged between 15 and 24.
The government has long promised to lower the unemployment rate through its active sectors, including the industrial sectors.
The Ministry of Trade and Industry said in April that “The strong positioning of the industrial sector as a lever for job creation and the professional integration of young people is now strongly supported by the deployment of vocational training, driven by King Mohammed VI.”
