Morocco: The unemployment rate rises above 10% in 2020

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The psychological barrier of 10% unemployment rate is now exceeded in Morocco. According to the latest figures from the HPC, the country has an unemployment rate at the national level of 11.9%, for the year 2020 instead of the 9.2% recorded in 2019.

This figure is even more alarming among young people (15-24) and graduates. It reached 31.2% for the former and 18.5% for the latter!

By area, unemployment goes from 2.9% to 15.8% in towns and from 3.7% to 5.9% in rural areas.

The rise in unemployment was expected, to say the least, as 2020 saw a prolonged lockdown of several months with almost total paralysis of the economy. Several sectors are still at a standstill today.

In any case, according to HCP data, the national economy has lost 432,000 jobs affecting in particular the sector of agriculture, forestry and fishing with 273,000 losses and services with 107,000 lost jobs. As for industry, including crafts, it lost 37,000. The construction industry is curiously the least affected with only 9,000 jobs lost.

In addition to the loss of job positions, the number of hours worked per week fell 20% from 494 million hours to 394 million hours, which corresponds to 2.1 million full-time jobs. The average number of hours worked per week fell from 45.2 to 37.5 hours.