Middle East Monitor
The Moroccan economy created more than 1.6 million new jobs in the period between 2002 and 2013, with an average of 139,000 jobs per year, Anadolu news agency has reported. The figures are contained in a report issued by the Ministry of Employment, Social Affairs and Solidarity in partnership with the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation and the International Labour Organisation. It pointed out, though, that the economic growth rates over the past few years have been insufficient to fulfil the growing demand for jobs.
According to the report, university graduates filled 90 per cent of the jobs available each year; the rest were occupied by those with no formal education certificates. The agricultural sector has been the largest provider of employment opportunities in Morocco, followed by the services sector, which includes trade, transportation, communications and management; industry was in third place. The recommendation was made that Morocco’s labour market needs to develop a national strategy in order to provide enough jobs.
Morocco’s GDP, which has increased by 1 per cent, has contributed to the provision of 30,000 new jobs, the report noted. The authors called on the Moroccan authorities to develop a macro-economic and investment climate to accelerate the pace of job creation in the country.
The Minister of Employment and Social Affairs, Abdul Salam Al Siddiqi, said in November that the unemployment rate during the second quarter of 2014 was 9.3 per cent compared with 8.8 per cent in 2013.
