Morocco’s Restaurant Industry in Crisis: Thousands of Cafes Close, Jobs Lost

The catering sector is in bad shape. A study presented at the regional conference of the National Federation of Cafe and Restaurant Owners in Morocco (FNPCRM) in Casablanca shows that more than 11,220 people working in the sector were laid off in 2023 in the Casablanca-Settat region, reports Hespress. In total, 8,964 cafes closed their doors last year compared to 1,870 in 2022. There are 28,614 workers laid off in the sector in 2023 compared to 5,244 the previous year in the Rabat-Salé-Kénitra region. According to the Federation, this situation is explained by the problems related to taxes, tax audits, fines, fees and social contributions, as well as the rise in the cost of raw materials, the aftermath of the Covid-19 crisis and the proliferation of mobile cafes.

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Faced with this gloomy picture, the FNPCRM is calling on the High Commission for Planning (HCP) to carry out an urgent study on the cafe and restaurant sector at the national level, in order to count the number of units that have closed since the Covid-19 period until the end of 2023 and to verify the "tragic" closures experienced by the sector’s units in Morocco, as well as the growing number of people losing their jobs every day. It is asking the Minister of Economy and Finance once again to cancel the fines and fees. It also advocates for the distribution of the initial amounts over a period of more than 72 months.

Cafe and restaurant owners have also once again called on the Minister of the Interior to enact a framework law, cap collective taxes, in order to reduce what they describe as the "subjectivity and arbitrariness of certain local authority leaders." Another plea: a call for the adoption of concrete measures to reduce the spread of the informal sector in the kingdom.