The top–Planning Commission (HCP) in its last ninformation note relating to the main characteristics of the active population employed in 2022, indicated that the unemployment rate for young people aged 15 to 24 is 32.7%, compared to 11.8% for the total national average, while for the unemployment rate for people aged 15 to 44 years is 12.3%.
More than one in four young people aged 15 to 24 does not go to school and does not follow any training. Unemployment fell to 3.3% for people aged 45 and over. The highest rate is 61.4% and is found among young graduates of higher education. However, it is good to know that this figure is down significantly from 2019 (1.7 million individuals) to 1.5 million in 2022.
The institution, from the start, sets the tone and indicates that in 2022, the population of working age will reach 27.5 million people, 12.2 million are active (10.7 million with a job and 1.4 million unemployed) and 15.3 million are outside the labor market. Nearly three quarters of people outside the labor market (73.1%) are women, 68.8% live in urban areas, more than half (51.1%) have no diploma and 44.9 % are between 15 and 34 years old.
The “services” sector remains at the forefront of operating sectors since it employs 47.4% of the working population. Among the active workers, 32.9% of them work in the trade branch, followed by the “agriculture, forestry and fishing” sector with a rate of 29.3%, les Services and Agriculture, forestry and fishing being the primary providers of employment in the national economy. We also note that more than half of employed workers (51.2%) have no certificate, 10.7% do seasonal work, 12.8% do unpaid work and only 26.5% have a work-related sickness cover.
More than half (52.6%) of employed workers are employees (compared to 51.8% a year earlier), 30.3% self-employed (compared to 29.6%), 12.3% family helpers (compared to 13.7%) and 2.1% of employers (against 2.2%). The professions most practiced are those of craftsmen and skilled workers in the craft trades with 19.6%, “workers and laborers in agriculture and fishing” (17.8%) and “non-agricultural labourers, handlers and workers in small trades” (16.5%).
With an estimated size of 11.2 million people, women outside the labor market represent 80.2% of women of working age. This is readily attributed to a sexist culture and male mentality that hinders gender equality in Morocco and to the prevalence of cultural and social stereotypes and prejudices. The reduced figures show that out of 5.9 million young people aged 15 to 24, 15.4% are in employment, while 7.4% are looking for work.
These are mainly students, students and housewives. The figures also reveal that more than one in four young men between the ages of 15 and 24 are categorized as ‘not in work, out of school or in training’. % of them are married, 68% are married and 2% have a certificate.
The Moroccan economy has seen itself seriously shaken up by Dame Covid with regard to job losses (432,000 jobs in 2020, to then create 230,000 jobs in 2021, then lose 24,000 jobs in 2022).
The working-age population grew by an average of nearly 400,000 people. In this respect and among young people aged 15 to 29, the employment rate reached 25% in 2022 against 25.4% in 2021, while it fell slightly by 0.7 points among people aged 30 to 44 years, to reach 54.1%, against 54.8% in the previous financial year.
With regard to employment-related medical coverage, the Haut Commissariat au Plan indicates that the proportion of employed workers affiliated to a medical coverage scheme improves markedly as the level of qualification rises. It goes from 11.8% among people with no diploma to 72.2% among those with a higher diploma.
Slightly less than half (46.7%) of employees benefit from medical coverage provided by the employer, 53.9% in urban areas and 26.4% in rural areas, 59% among women and 43, 6% among men. For self-employed, this share is 5.5%. One in four active workers (25.8%) is affiliated to a pension system, 37.9% in urban areas and 8.1% in rural areas. The rate of coverage by a pension system is higher among women than men, respectively 30.6% and 24.5%.
In addition, nearly half of employees (48.8%) have a contract formalizing their relationship with the employer. This proportion rises to 62.3% among women against 45.3% among men.