Rabat – Morocco plans to promote auto-entrepreneurship as an instrument to formalize the status of workers in the informal sector.
Younes Sekkouri, Morocco’s Minister of Economic Inclusion, Small Business, Employment, and Skills, raised this point on Monday while responding to a question raised at a parliamentary hearing by a representative of the National Rally of Independents (RNI).
Adequately tackling the burden represented by Morocco’s informal sector requires the government and local authorities to pay special attention to the reasons that lead some to work in this sector, said the minister.
The low income generated by certain activities in the informal sector does not allow workers to make necessary declarations nor pursue a shift to the formal sector that is organized and protected by law, he noted.
Sekkouri further underlined the existence of informal economic activities that generate significant income.
Working under informal status, workers and employers associated with these activities do not fully contribute to the country’s economic development as they do not pay taxes, among other regulations.
To mitigate such concerns, Sekkouri stressed, the government is projecting to l implement an ambitious employment control program.
While Sekkouri didn’t disclose detailed information on said program, reports indicate that the government-sponsored scheme is expected to regulate employment practices across sectors.
Also included in the prospective program is the urgency of promoting auto-entrepreneurship as an alternative to informal economic activities through facilitating administrative procedures and increasing financial incentives.
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Morocco’s slow but largely encouraging post-pandemic recovery over the past few months and weeks suggests the country is on track to emerge from the COVID-induced socio-economic fog.
Despite such heartening prospects, Sekkouri’s comments come on the heels of alarming reports on the heavy burden that the informal sector represents for the Moroccan economy.
The dominance of the informal sector represents a major weakness in Morocco’s labor market and economy along with a deficit in job creation in the formal sector and the rise of youth unemployment, Oxfam concluded in January in its latest “Labor Market in Morocco” report.
In 2021, the employment rate in Morocco’s formal sector only reached 39.7%, down from 41.6% in 2019, the country’s High Commission for Planning (HCP) said on March 1.
A week later, HCP noted that 8 out of 10 women remain outside Morocco’s labor market — with 73.7% of them working as housewives. Moroccan women’s low participation in the labor market burdens the country’s economic growth and sustainable development, the commission concluded.
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