Employment in Morocco has risen by 1.5 percent in 2019 compared with the previous year as 165 thousand new job positions mainly in the services sector and construction and public work sector were.

250 thousand new job positions have been created in Moroccan cities in 2019 whereas rural areas lost 85,000 jobs in the same year. The 165,000 positions overall came from the services, the construction and public work, and then industry sector.

The services sector topped the list of employers with 267,000 new position followed by the construction and public sector with 24,000 jobs. Industry (including handicraft) came third with 17,000 new jobs. However, Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries recorded a negative 146,000 jobs in the same year.

Consequently, Morocco’s Higher Planning Commission states that unemployment in the country dropped by 30,000 individuals in urban areas and rose 3,000 in rural areas, bringing the total number to 1,107,000 unemployed.

This brings the rate of unemployment to 9.2 percent down from 9.5 percent last year, an decrease of 0.9 percent in cities and a increase of 0.1 in urban areas.

As to the most affected demographic categories by unemployment, Higher Planning Commission reveals that young Moroccans aged between 15 and 24 years old head the list with 24.9 percent. These are followed by degree holders at 15.7% and women with 13.5% unemployment rate.

The rate of underemployment due to the number of hours worked attained 3.5% with 385,000 individuals affected nationwide.

In addition to the number of work hours, International Labor Office (ILO) states that underemployment is also the result of income inadequacy or incompatibility between training and employment. ILO unveils that 616,000 people in Morocco suffer from the latter form of underemployment, or 5.7 percent of the overall population.

Last November, Higher Planning Commission reported that underemployment fell by 9.1% in the third quarter, and it now confirmed this trend is still going downward (though slowly) as it dropped by 0.1 nationwide compared with 2018.