Rabat – The International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) World Economic Outlook projects Morocco’s unemployment rate to average 10.7% throughout 2023, a slight decline compared to 11.8% at the end of 2022.
Thus, the report expects employment to recover in the North African country after the national economy lost hundreds of thousands of jobs due to the COVID-19-induced economic crisis.
A report from Morocco’s Morocco’s Higher Commission of Planning (HCP) indicated that the national economy experienced a loss of around 432,000 jobs between 2020 and 2021, and 24,000 jobs between 2021 and 2022.
On the continental level, Egypt and Sudan are forecasted to have unemployment rates of 7.3% and a crippling 30.6% respectively. Meanwhile, South Africa is projected to have the highest joblessness rate worldwide, estimated at 35.6%.
“Over one in three people are projected to be unemployed in South Africa, the highest in the world,” said the report.
Read also: HCP: Three out of Ten Unemployed Moroccans Are Young People
In Europe, Bosnia and Herzegovina is expected to see the highest joblessness rate, estimated at 17%, followed by North Macedonia and Spain with 15% and 12.7% respectively.
Meanwhile, the West Bank and Gaza is expected to have the third highest unemployment rate globally, sitting at 25%. Georgia follows in fourth position with a joblessness rate of 19.5%.
The report expects the United States to have an unemployment rate of 3.4%, noting that it “hasn’t fallen this low since 1969.”
With a 1% rate, Thailand is expected to have the lowest unemployment rate worldwide. However, the report noted that half of the Asian country’s workforce is part of the informal sector, excluding them from its joblessness data.
Slow economic growth, coupled with rising interest rates and inflation, could place a huge toll on global employment in 2023, indicated the report. However, it is hopeful that “inflation can potentially be tamed” by improving supply shortages and transportation systems.
