Unemployment in Morocco falls to 9.51 TP3T during the second quarter of 2026
Written by: Ayman Ragab
Morocco’s High Commission for Planning announced that the unemployment rate fell to 9.5% during the second quarter of 2026, according to the first memo based on data from the new Labor Force Survey (EMO2026), which officially replaces the National Employment Survey adopted decades ago.
The High Commission for Planning explained that the unemployment rate reached 11.9% in urban areas and 5.4% in rural areas, while it was recorded at 14.8% among women compared to 8.1% among men.
The data showed that young people aged between 15 and 24 were the most affected by unemployment, at a rate of 27.2%, followed by people between 25 and 34 years old at a rate of 14.5%.
According to educational level, the unemployment rate was 16.7% among those with higher education degrees, 16% among those with intermediate degrees, and 11.4% among those with basic degrees, while it dropped to 3.8% among people with no degree.
Decline compared to the first quarter of the year
Unemployment declined compared to the first quarter of the year, falling by 1.3 percentage points from 10.8% to 9.5%. It also decreased in urban areas from 13.5% to 11.9%, and in rural areas from 6.1% to 5.4%.
Unemployment rates for men and women also declined by 1.3 percentage points each, and decreased across all age groups, most notably among young people aged 15 to 24, from 29.2% to 27.2%.
The High Commission for Planning indicated that the overall rate of unemployment and underemployment related to working hours reached 14% during the second quarter of 2026, compared to 16.6% in the first quarter, while it reached 15.9% in urban areas and 10.8% in rural areas, and recorded 17.6% among women compared to 13% among men.
The combined rate of actual unemployment and potential labor force reached 14.71 TP3T, with 17.31 TP3T in urban areas and 101 TP3T in rural areas, showing a clear disparity between women (24.21 TP3T) and men (11.91 TP3T). This indicator decreased by 2.4 percentage points compared to the first quarter of the year.
The number of unemployed people is 1.121 million.
In absolute numbers, the number of unemployed people reached 1.121 million during the second quarter of 2026, of whom 79.31 million were in urban areas and 33.31 million were women, a decrease of 132,000 unemployed compared to the first quarter.
The number of workers suffering from a lack of job opportunities due to working hours reached 527,000 people, 561,000 of whom live in urban areas, while the size of the potential labor force was estimated at about 711,000 people, equivalent to 4,410,000 non-working population.
The delegation confirmed that the EMO2026 system is the first Moroccan statistical system that complies with the latest recommendations of the International Labour Organization's conferences on labour statistics, and it has begun publishing recalculated indicators to rebuild the historical series of labour market indicators for the period between 2017 and 2025 according to the new concepts.
