Job losses in the value-added agriculture sector, which employs roughly 40% of Morocco’s labour force, largely offset rising job creation in the services and manufacturing sectors, boosting Morocco's unemployment rate to 10.0% in the first quarter of 2016 from 9.5% in Q4 last year and 9.9% in Q1 2015, the statistics office HCP said. The jobless rate has thus hit the long-standing benchmark of 10% in a warning sign to the government that has failed to largely diversify its agro-dependent economy.
In 2015, the jobless rate also eased to 9.7% from 9.9% the year before.
In urban provinces, the unemployment rate increased to 14.6% in Q1 2016 from 14.2% in Q4 last year. That in rural also grew to 4.5% from 4% in Q4 2015.
Between Q1 2015 and Q1 2016, the Moroccan economy lost 13,000 net jobs. The reading resulted from 28,000 jobs lost in rural areas amid poor harvest season that largely mitigated the 15,000 jobs created in urban areas.
The jobless rate among active males reached 9.6% in Q1 and that among females stood at 11.2%.
The jobless rate among Moroccan with high education increased to 17.5% in Q1 from 17.3% in the same quarter of 2015.
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