Morocco's Youth Unemployment Climbs Above 30 Percent

Morocco's labour market is under pressure at its youngest end. Figures from the High Commission for Planning, known as the HCP, show that unemployment among people aged 15 to 24 reached 30.5 percent in the third quarter of 2026, up from 27.2 percent in the second quarter. That is a rise of 3.3 percentage points in just three months, according to Morocco World News, which reported on the HCP's Q3 labour market report published on 3 November.

The pressure is not limited to the youngest group. Unemployment among 25 to 34 year olds rose from 14.5 percent to 16 percent, while it stands at 5.8 percent for those aged 35 to 44 and 3.5 percent for those aged 45 and over. The pattern is clear: the younger the worker, the harder it is to find a job.

The HCP also measures a broader indicator, the composite labour underutilisation rate, which counts people who are unemployed as well as those who want to work more or are discouraged from looking. For 15 to 24 year olds it stands at 44.5 percent, so nearly half of the young people in the expanded labour force are either without work or not using their full capacity. Only 23.3 percent of this age group take part in the labour market at all, and the youth employment rate is 16.2 percent.

The gap between women and men is sharper still. Women's unemployment was 16.7 percent in the third quarter, nearly twice the 8.7 percent recorded for men. The women's rate rose by 1.9 points compared with the previous quarter, while the men's rate rose by 0.6 points. On the broader measure, underutilisation reaches 28.5 percent for women compared with 17 percent for men.

Participation is where the gap is widest. Only 18.1 percent of women are in the labour force, against 65.6 percent of men. Women make up 21.7 percent of Morocco's labour force, and 70.6 percent of the female population is outside it. The employment rate is 15 percent for women and 59.9 percent for men.

Morocco World News describes a labour market that continues to face significant challenges in providing jobs for young people and women. The report does not attribute the quarterly rise to a single cause, and the figures are survey-based, so quarter-to-quarter movements can be volatile. Still, the direction is concerning, and the underlying structure, with low participation among women and high underutilisation among the young, has been in place for a long time.

For policymakers, the numbers pose two questions at once. One is how to create entry-level jobs fast enough for a young population. The other is how to bring far more women into paid work, since a labour force in which fewer than one in five women takes part leaves a great deal of potential unused. The HCP data gives a baseline against which any new employment programme can be measured over the coming quarters.

Why it matters

The numbers show two gaps at once: age and gender. With under one in five women in the labour force, Morocco is leaving a large share of its talent outside the economy, and any jobs strategy that ignores that gap will miss half the problem.