Moroccan Civil Service Salaries Reveal Wide Pay Gaps Across Sectors

In the civil service, six departments (National Education, Interior, Health, Justice, Finance and Public Administration Reform, and Foreign Affairs) account for nearly 90% of civilian state personnel expenses, reports L’Economiste, adding that the Ministry of Education alone accounts for 49.19% of these expenses. With the high rate of grades and recruitments oriented towards executives and senior executives, the supervision rate reached 66.9% in 2020.

In the private sector, the average monthly salary was 5,255 dirhams in 2019, an increase of 1.3% compared to 2018. The year 2020 will not remain without the impact of the health crisis on wages. Furthermore, 45% of the salaries declared to the CNSS (National Social Security Fund) in 2019 are below the minimum wage and 16% receive more than 6,000 dirhams. But in the civil service, following changes made as part of the social dialogue, the minimum wage has increased from 1,885 dirhams in 2010 to 3,258 dirhams in 2020.

This wage difference is due to the disparities existing between the departments. Thus, the executive staff is at 4,919 dirhams of net salary, the supervisory staff is at 5,395 dirhams and the executives and senior executives are at 9,653 dirhams. In addition, the staff of the Ministry of Justice receives an average of 12,201 dirhams per month, compared to 8,320 dirhams for the Ministry of Finance. Note that this remuneration does not include bonuses.

"...The volume of grade-related allowances constitutes an average of 76% of the gross monthly remuneration," stated the Court of Auditors in its "Evaluation of the civil service system," adding that thus "this system has become more complicated by the addition of other remuneration elements that are not provided for in any statute. This results in inequitable situations."