Rabat – Despite working longer hours, informal workers receive salaries that are five times less than those active in the formal sector, according to recently unveiled data by the High Commission for Planning (HCP), Morocco’s foremost statistics agency.
Ahmed Lahlimi Alami, the head of Morocco’s High Commission for Planning (HCP) unveiled the alarming data on Tuesday, saying that the informal employees work an annual average of 145 hours more than those active in the formal sector.
“The predominance of informal work leads to significant disparities in terms of working time, remuneration and productivity,” Lahlimi said.
The HCP chief made his remarks during a press conference dedicated to the presentation of the Employment Satellite Account (CSE) produced by HCP in collaboration with the International Labor Organization.
Lahlimi also pointed out the wider challenges facing the Moroccan labor sector, including the reallocation of jobs between sectors with low periodicity.
The situation, according to Lahlimi, does not work to serve the transformation of structures of production of the national economy and contribute to a stagnation of productivity and the weakness of economic growth.
It also promotes the development of an “informal sphere that permeates all the branches of activity,” he added.
Lahlimi further shared data documenting the concerning underrepresentation of females in high-skilled jobs.
He said that the number of women occupying managerial and technical positions does not exceed 15% of the total population of female workers in Morocco.
In one of its latest statistics, published last month, the HCP concluded that Morocco’s labor market has seen a continuous decline for several years.
The activity rate of Moroccan women in the country’s labor market did not exceed 19.6% at the end of 2022.
A recent study by the World Bank made a similar assessment, describing this situation as “astonishing” and arguing that it constitutes a major challenge for the Moroccan economy.
