The unemployment rate in Morocco edged down to 10 percent in the first quarter of 2019 from 10.5 percent in the same period a year ago. The number of unemployed decreased by 61 thousand to 1.211 million while employed increased by 15 thousand to 10.897 million. Among sectors, jobs were added in services (+144,000); construction (+19,000) and industry including handicrafts (+4,000) while agriculture & fisheries lost positions (-152,000), as poor rainfall in the winter months has hampered cereal crop development. By genders, the jobless rate was lower for men (8.5% vs 8.9% in Q1 2018) than for women (14.7% vs 15.1%). Meantime, the unemployment rate remained high among youth aged 15-24 (24.1% vs 25.7%), the 25-34 age group (15.9% vs 16.7%) and college graduates (17.1% vs 18.3%). Unemployment Rate in Morocco averaged 10.44 percent from 1999 until 2019, reaching an all time high of 15.10 percent in the third quarter of 1999 and a record low of 7.80 percent in the second quarter of 2006.
Unemployment Rate in Morocco is expected to be 9.40 percent by the end of this quarter, according to Trading Economics global macro models and analysts expectations. Looking forward, we estimate Unemployment Rate in Morocco to stand at 9.90 in 12 months time. In the long-term, the Morocco Unemployment Rate is projected to trend around 9.30 percent in 2020, according to our econometric models.