Rabat – Morocco’s national unemployment rate edged slightly down by 1.6% at the end of the first half of 2022, according to data from Morocco’s Higher Commission of Planning (HCP).
Unemployment currently stands at 11.2%, down from 12.8% a year earlier, an HCP report said this week, showing that unemployment is especially high in Morocco’s urban areas. While unemployment in urban areas decreased by 2.7%, going from 18.2% in Q2 of 2021 to 15.5% at the end of Q2 this year, the rate remains drastically higher than that in rural areas.
At the same time, the HCP report found that the unemployment rate in rural areas stands at 4.2%, marking a 0.6% decline from last year’s 4.8%.
Detailing unemployment alongside the gender dimension, HCP data further reveal that unemployment fell by 2% for Morocco’s male population, settling at 9.9%, down from 11.9% last year.
In addition, HCP data indicate that the rate of unemployment among the country’s female labor force dropped from 15.9% to 15.1% over the same period.
Read also: Morocco’s Unemployment Rate Declined in June 2022
Despite remaining at high levels, unemployment among Morocco’s college graduates noted a slight decrease over the past year, going from 20.4% to 18%. Meanwhile, joblessness among the non-graduate population went from 5% in 2021 to 3.6% at the end of June 2022.
The decline in the unemployment rate extends to all age groups, the report explained, adding that it is especially noticeable among the population aged 25 to 34 years.
For the 25-34 age group, unemployment stood at 18.7% as of June 2022, down from 20.9% last year. At the same time, unemployment figures remained largely unchanged for Morocco’s 15-24 population, going from 30.8% a year earlier to 30.2% at the end of June 2022.
