Rabat – Morocco’s Minister of Higher Education, Scientific Research and Innovation Abdellatif Miraoui announced that nearly 3,700 Moroccan professionals, including doctors and engineers, leave Morocco each year to work abroad.
During his participation in the ceremony of the 65th anniversary of the Mohammed V University in Rabat on December 21, Abdellatif Miraoui noted that approximately 700 doctors and between 2,000 to 3,000 engineers, in addition to 30,000 workers in the field of tourism, emigrate each year for various reasons.
He described the loss as “immeasurable” for Morocco.
The minister highlighted that the number of the doctors who left Morocco was around600 in 2018, representing 30% of the medical and pharmacy graduates for that year.
The numbers disclosed by Miraoui serve to raise awareness of the gravity and negative repercussions of the country’s brain drain problem on a number of sectors.
In a parliament session on October 17, the minister said that the government intends to implement agreements with several countries to protect Moroccan workers’ rights.
Morocco has long been facing a human capital flight problem in sectors like healthcare and other skilled jobs.
The combination of comparatively unattractive employment offers in the country and a high demand for doctors and engineers in Europe or North America have led to a significant number of graduated preferring to find work abroad.
Some estimates have ranked Morocco’s brain drain problem as the 23rd most severe in the world.
Read also: 27,000 Moroccans Left to Work Abroad in 2022
