Morocco’s Unemployed Favor Salaried Jobs Over Self-Employment, Central Bank Reports

In this report addressed to King Mohammed VI, the central bank notes a significant increase in salaried employment of 2.1% per year between 1999 and 2023, compared to 0.8% for total employment. Last year, salaried employment increased by 10.4% in both urban and rural areas. In 2023, out of the 10.6 million employed active people, 6.2 million, or 58.9%, are employees, the BAM report indicates, stressing that the self-employed (3.2 million, or 30.1%) and family helpers and apprentices (nearly 1.2 million, or 10.8%) make up the remaining share. In urban areas, 71.1% of jobs are salaried compared to 39.9% in rural areas. This rate is slightly higher among men (59.3%) than among women (57.4%), the document details.

Despite this notable increase, the salaried employment rate in Morocco (52.6%) remains low compared to countries like Turkey (70.7%), Egypt and Tunisia (73.7%), and Spain (84.6%), according to data from the International Labor Organization (ILO) cited in the report, which also mentions the working conditions of Moroccan employees. In 2023, 51.9% of employees worked without a contract, 54.2% without medical coverage, and only 44.4% were affiliated with a pension scheme, the report points out, further revealing that 97.6% of employees said they had not been sent for training by their employer in the last twelve months.

These worrying working conditions do not, however, worry unemployed Moroccans who continue to prefer salaried employment to self-employment. In its report, BAM, citing data from the 2019 national employment survey, indicates that 71.9% of the unemployed, especially women (78.3%) and higher education graduates (78.7%), have a preference for salaried employment. A trend that highlights the low interest in entrepreneurship, despite the creation of the self-employed status since 2015. From 406,000 at the end of 2022, the number of self-employed has fallen to 396,000 at the end of November 2023. Yet the creation of this status aims to reduce the informal economy and unemployment, with the key being tax incentives.