Gov't Has Achieved Honorable Results in its Employment Policy - El Otmani

The government has given high priority to employment by adopting for the first time in Morocco a strategic plan for the promotion of employment 2017-2021, in a participatory manner with the regions of the Kingdom and the private sector, according to the Head of government, Saad Dine El Otmani.

This plan aims to promote employment, strengthen its regional dimension and expand employment programs, including those aimed at graduates, youth, rural population, women in vulnerable situations and people with disabilities, El Otmani underlined in a document published on the official website of the Department of the Head of Government.

Aware of the major role that employment plays in ensuring the dignity of citizens and supporting economic development, the government has put in place integrated programs to ensure greater consistency between education and employment, provide job seekers with the necessary training and support, launch initiatives for job creation and develop active employment programs, he said.

For a better qualification for the labor market, a series of measures have been taken such as the creation of the vocational baccalaureate, the promotion of professionalization in higher education and the launch of the reform of the teaching system in universities by adopting the Bachelor, El Otmani underlined.

He emphasized the improvement of the employability of 770,000 job seekers in 2017-2020, 406,000 of whom joined the salaried employment program.

The government has also achieved positive results in the three programs dedicated to the promotion of employment for the benefit of youth and graduates (Idmaj, Taehil and Tahfiz) exceeding the bar of 100,000 insertion operations per year, he noted, noting that the number of beneficiaries has increased from 92,000 in 2017 to nearly 109,000 in 2018 and more than 118,000 in 2019.

In that regard, he noted that the Executive has ensured the strengthening of the system of self-employment through tax incentives for the benefit of the self-entrepreneur and access to public procurement, noting that the number of registrants in this system has increased from less than 29,000 in 2016 to reach 277,000 until November 2020, 54% of which are young people.

To protect the rights of workers, the government has focused on developing the system of health and safety in the workplace and the skills and performance of labor inspectors, El Otmani stressed, adding that the executive has proceeded to strengthen the labor inspection system, which had no more than 320 inspectors, by providing it with 182 new professionals in 2021.

The government has consolidated the system of compensation for loss of employment and simplified the procedures to benefit, thus benefiting 74,000 people during the period 2016-2020 for a budget exceeding 977 million dirhams.

The government has also made an unprecedented effort in the public sector, creating more than 212,000 budgetary positions over the 2017-2021 period, an annual average of more than 42,000 positions compared to the 2007-2016 period (less than 21,000).

These achievements have strengthened the dynamics of the national labor market and generated a decline in the unemployment rate, reduced by one point since 2017 to reach 9.2% in 2019.

Despite the serious impact of the health crisis on the labor market in 2020, the government has adopted mechanisms and exceptional  economic and social measures, thus preventing the bankruptcy of a considerable number of companies by allowing them to maintain a large part of their employees.

Unlike several neighboring countries, these measures have avoided a significant increase in the unemployment rate, kept at 11.9% instead of over 14% as initially expected, he noted.

“Encouraging signs of economic recovery are increasingly perceptible,” said El Otmani, stressing that the government will continue its efforts, in cooperation with its partners, to preserve existing jobs and create more, especially for youth and graduates.