Over a year, the Moroccan national economy has lost 297,000 job positions. According to data from the High Commission for Planning, between the third quarter of 2022 and that of 2023, 29,000 jobs were eliminated in urban areas within Morocco, alongside a reduction of 269,000 positions in rural regions of the country.
The agriculture, forestry, and fishing sectors bore the brunt of the impact, experiencing a loss of 297,000 job positions. Following closely, the service and construction sectors ranked second and third, with reductions of 15,000 and 2,000 jobs, respectively. In contrast, the industrial sector, including artisanal activities, created 14,000 new jobs.
With an increase of 248,000 unemployed individuals, of which 181,000 were in urban areas and 67,000 in rural regions, the overall unemployment rate reached 1.62 million people at the national level in the third quarter of 2023, as reported by the High Commission for Planning (HCP).
The unemployment rate rose from 11.4% to 13.5% nationally between the third quarter of 2022 and 2023, climbing from 15% to 17% in urban areas and from 5.2% to 7% in rural regions. Notably, the highest unemployment rates were observed among young individuals aged 15 to 24 years, at 38.2%, women at 19.8%, and graduates at 19.8%, according to the same source.