Employment: Charting a New Course for a Sector in Profound Transformation

The employment sector is undergoing profound transformation. In public policy, the greatest challenge lies in devising actionable plans for a field where already multifaceted parameters shift frequently and abruptly. 

The Covid-19 pandemic, which caught the world off guard, triggered a sudden spike in unemployment to 13.3%. Subsequent global crises—marked by inflation and, above all, climate change—exacerbated the situation. 

A new unemployment threshold of 12% was breached during the Covid crisis. By 2023, drought, the Ukraine conflict, and inflation pushed the rate to 13%, driven largely by losses in agricultural employment. Between 2021 and 2024, nearly 600,000 jobs vanished, predominantly unpaid family labor. 

A significant portion of these jobs is unlikely to be formally reinstated, for at least three reasons. First, individuals who previously worked in fields and were registered as active may continue working informally to avoid losing eligibility for direct financial aid. 

Second, Morocco’s progressive urbanization—and the depopulation of rural areas—plays a role. The urbanization rate reached 62.8% in 2024, up from 60.4% in 2014, while rural population growth stagnated at 0.22% annually, compared to 1.24% in urban areas. 

Third, as both cause and consequence of this shift, the government has launched an employment roadmap and reform programs to create paid jobs, with workers registered under the National Social Security Fund (CNSS) to safeguard their social rights. 

Morocco’s industrialization—industrialized products now account for over 86% of exports—is also reshaping the nature and quality of employment. The transition is well underway. 

Although unemployment rose slightly to 13.3% year-over-year, the government emphasizes that “this trend masks significant improvements in job quality, as most losses were in unpaid roles, while paid employment grew.”

Since 2021, over 560,000 jobs have been created. “This improvement is also reflected in higher average qualifications—50% of jobs in 2023 were skilled—and increased wages. The total wage bill grew by 8% between 2022 and 2023.” 

The momentum is set to accelerate with the implementation of a new government roadmap, backed by a 15-billion-dirham budget, targeting the creation of 1.45 million jobs by 2030. 

The goal is clear: reduce unemployment to 9% and expand the workforce to 12.1 million employed Moroccans, with only 5% directly reliant on rainfall-dependent agricultural jobs. To achieve this, the government advocates a “harmonized, integrated approach that simultaneously intensifies net job creation and limits job destruction.” 

Targeting 9% Unemployment

The pragmatic roadmap recently launched by the government—outlined in an official circular addressed to its members and leaders of public enterprises (EEP)—is structured around five pillars. These include four strategic pillars defining intervention priorities, supplemented by a cross-cutting pillar focused on employment governance and management, deemed “a critical undertaking to ensure focused and effective execution of initiatives under this roadmap.”

Broadly, the plan aims to stimulate investment and optimize value and job creation across sectors while guiding ministries to balance job creation with reducing losses, particularly in the informal economy. It also seeks to mitigate short-term drought impacts on agricultural job destruction by modernizing the sector and redirecting displaced workers to sustainable roles. Additionally, the roadmap prioritizes enhancing job creation for targeted groups, such as women, by improving training-to-employment pathways and lowering barriers to workforce participation.

Concrete actions will operationalize these goals. For example, three planned interventions aim to secure a net gain of 350,000 sustainable jobs by 2026. Support for small and medium-sized enterprises (TPME) is projected to generate 35,000 to 40,000 jobs, while expanding active labor policies—including programs like Idmaj and Tahfiz Taehil—alongside universalizing apprenticeships and introducing a job-creation incentive for micro-enterprises (TPE), aims to achieve 422,500 job placements by 2025. This effort is backed by an additional 2 billion dirhams in funding.

This overhaul mirrors reforms seen in social assistance programs. A third measure seeks to curb agricultural losses by restoring cereal-cultivated land to over 4 million hectares and implementing an employment action plan overseen by the relevant ministry.