Young and restless: The government aims to target a persistently high unemployment rate

Official statistics place unemployment in Morocco at 9.1%. However, these measures do not take into account seasonal workers, those who have given up looking for work or the informal working economy, making it difficult to accurately gauge the employment situation. Nevertheless, seven out of every 10 households in Morocco say finding work is a preoccupation, according to a survey by the High Commission for Planning (Haut Commissariat au Plan, HCP). Global consultancy McKinsey & Company and the World Bank estimate that youth unemployment is between 28% and 30%.

CORRECTIVE MEASURES: The government has taken steps to boost employment, via programmes such as a public recruitment campaign. Authorities recognise the importance of employment creation, as jobs are the main vehicle through which economic growth trickles down to the population. Working opportunities also increase social and political stability in a country with a majority young population. The active population above age 15 reached 11.5m people in 2012, or 36% of the population. This was up 0.1% on 2011, with a rise of 0.9% in urban centres and a slight reduction of 0.8% in rural areas, according to the HCP. The rate of activity also reduced by 0.8%, from 49.2% in 2011 to 48.4% in 2012, the study said.

PLAN OF ACTION: The government’s main strategy for job creation is to stimulate economic growth. In its National Pact for Industrial Emergence, which outlines the national development strategy for different industrial and services sectors, the number jobs the government expects to create in each sector is given as a target. However, what was missing in these projections has been a coherent strategy for preparing the local workforce for the jobs such industries will create, as has been the case in new ventures in the aeronautics or offshoring segments.

Industry observers say that call centres, for instance, initially made provisions for higher-skilled jobs, but that companies could not find employees with the skills needed to perform the necessary tasks. “Morocco promotes its labour force as a key asset, but there is much to upgrade in that area,” said Caroline Sorgues, who oversees business climate and industrial policy for the EU’s Morocco mission.

The mismatch is further highlighted in official statistics, which show that those most affected by the high unemployment rate are young university graduates living in urban areas. While total unemployment only rose 0.1% in 2012, the largest increases were among young people aged 15 to 24 years old (up 0.7%) and those ages 25-34 (up 0.3%), accompanied by a 1.3% drop in underemployment.

EDUCATION FIRST: In a bid to increase the education-to-job ratio, the Moroccan government launched a 2009-12 higher education emergency plan that reviews the current curriculum and looks to fill the gap by creating new courses that respond to the private sector’s needs. The government is all the more interested in aligning education with market demand as it holds a stake in many of the private sector’s projects, thanks to the country’s public-private partnership schemes, which the government expects will be a main source of job creation.

However, that the educated youth, who have paid for education and worked for their degrees, cannot find jobs could be a catalyst for social and political instability. The education-to-employment problem is not specific to Morocco. A recent study by McKinsey evaluated the phenomenon in nine different countries and concluded that the gap between educational attainment and employment prospects is a disconnect between employers, educators and students, who all have different ideas of what it takes for a graduate to be ready for the job market. Among the countries that the study analysed, which were Morocco, Brazil, Germany, India, Mexico, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the UK and the US, McKinsey found that only 43% of employers surveyed agreed that they are able to find enough skilled entry-level workers to hire.

SHIFTING SANDS: In Morocco, a fast-changing job landscape is likely exacerbating the situation, as traditional industries shed jobs and new ones demand less labour. In a recent study, the service sector was the only one to have created jobs in 2012, offering 111,000 new positions over the course of the year. All other sectors lost jobs: agriculture, forestry and fishing lost 59,000 jobs; industry, including craftsmanship, lost 28,000; construction lost 21,000; and other undefined sectors lost 2000.

Morocco’s is now trying to make up for the lag by updating the labour force’s skills and tightening relations with employers. The government’s approach in addressing the issue is to offer training grants to private companies, giving its young jobseekers a new comparative advantage. In 2011 two vocational training schools were opened, one preparing workers in the aeronautics sector and the other in automobile manufacturing, both segments prioritised under the National Pact for Industrial Emergence. At the Motor Trade Training Centre, a facility in Tangier opened by the government and Renault Maroc, incentives for training Moroccan staff amount to Dh20, 000-Dh60,000 (€1800-€5300) per worker, each year, depending on staff level. Private companies have begun applying to the government for grants to increase the number of training hours they extend.

Meanwhile, in Casablanca Finance City, which aspires to turn Morocco’s largest city, Casablanca, into an African financial centre, stakeholders are planning a master’s degree in financial engineering, which Hicham Zegrary, acting director of the Moroccan Financial Board, has described as “a high-level qualification that will open the door to real professional perspectives in Morocco and abroad”.

Professional development programmes, such as Taehil, Moukawalati and Idmaj, also promote job creation for young graduates by offering special work contracts for graduates with little to no experience. However, the government remains the largest employer of this category of worker. Many young Moroccans prefer public functions over working for private companies because of the public sector’s comparatively attractive salary packages.

THE ROAD AHEAD: In short, the government is fighting unemployment by providing its graduates with jobs via key strategies and programmes, such as a public recruitment campaign, to boost employment in the kingdom. The government also increased public service salaries in 2011 and has started to evaluate the success rate of its initiatives.

Furthermore, the government is working to expand the labour market in general and ensure that the labour supply for the private sector is well prepared for employers’ needs. Such alignment and repositioning of the labour market is important for social and political stability and critical if Morocco is indeed to gain a comparative advantage over other countries.