Morocco’s Unemployment Rate Drops 4.8% in Q1 2019, Urban Areas See Biggest Gains

The data from the High Commission for Planning (HCP) show a progression in the job market, recorded mainly in urban areas, knowing that the national average unemployment rate has shown a slight decrease of 0.5%.

Indeed, while the unemployment rate has fallen from 15.6% to 14.5% in urban areas, the rural world has seen the number of unemployed rise by 0.3% compared to 2018. The Moroccan countryside seems to be suffering from a poor agricultural year. Between the first quarter of 2018 and that of 2019, the agriculture, forestry and fishing sector has in fact destroyed 152,000 jobs.

The biggest drops in unemployment were recorded among 15-24 year olds, whose unemployment rate fell from 25.7% to 24.1%, as well as among graduates. In the countryside, on the other hand, some 8,000 new unemployed have been recorded.

The HCP explains this good performance of the Moroccan job market by the dynamism of the services sector, which created 144,000 jobs last year, compared to 19,000 in construction and 4,000 in industry.