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Unemployment Drops in Morocco to 8.5%

Employees work at a factory operated by Somaca in Tangiers, file. REUTERS/Stringer
Employees work at a factory operated by Somaca in Tangiers, file. REUTERS/Stringer
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Unemployment Drops in Morocco to 8.5%

Employees work at a factory operated by Somaca in Tangiers, file. REUTERS/Stringer
Employees work at a factory operated by Somaca in Tangiers, file. REUTERS/Stringer

The unemployment rate in Morocco reached 8.5 percent at the end of June after it was at 9.1 percent last year, Reuters reported, quoting the Kingdom’s High Commission of Planning.

HCP said that the job market was marked by a “further decline” in employment rates in cities, however, rural areas saw a rise of unemployment due to aridity.

“The number of unemployed people has declined from 1.1 million to 1.03 million following a drop of 77,000 in unemployed people,” the HCP said.

The report published on Wednesday showed that Morocco’s national economy created 7,000 job opportunities in the second quarter of 2019 compared to the much higher 117,000 in the same period in 2018.

The unemployed rate in urban areas dropped around 84,000 while it rose approximately 7,000 in rural areas. The unemployment rate in urban areas declined from 13.7 percent to 12.4 percent. , however, it rose in rural areas to 3.3 percent from 3 percent.

The Moroccan economy created during this period 210,000 jobs and lost 203, added the report.

It added that the services sector created 167,000 jobs, while industrial sectors created 43,000 jobs. The construction sector lost 27,000 jobs at the national level due to the continuous real estate crisis, while the agricultural sector lost 176,000 jobs due to aridity.

In the statement, the agency said that 132,000 jobs were gained in cities while only 125,000 were provided in rural areas.

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ECB's Lagarde Renews Integration Call as Trade War Looms

FILE PHOTO: European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde and Governor of the Bank of Finland Olli Rehn arrive at the non-monetary policy meeting of the ECB's Governing Council in Inari, Finnish Lapland, Finland February 22, 2023. Lehtikuva/Tarmo Lehtosalo via REUTERS//File Photo
FILE PHOTO: European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde and Governor of the Bank of Finland Olli Rehn arrive at the non-monetary policy meeting of the ECB's Governing Council in Inari, Finnish Lapland, Finland February 22, 2023. Lehtikuva/Tarmo Lehtosalo via REUTERS//File Photo
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ECB's Lagarde Renews Integration Call as Trade War Looms

FILE PHOTO: European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde and Governor of the Bank of Finland Olli Rehn arrive at the non-monetary policy meeting of the ECB's Governing Council in Inari, Finnish Lapland, Finland February 22, 2023. Lehtikuva/Tarmo Lehtosalo via REUTERS//File Photo
FILE PHOTO: European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde and Governor of the Bank of Finland Olli Rehn arrive at the non-monetary policy meeting of the ECB's Governing Council in Inari, Finnish Lapland, Finland February 22, 2023. Lehtikuva/Tarmo Lehtosalo via REUTERS//File Photo

European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde renewed her call for economic integration across Europe on Friday, arguing that intensifying global trade tensions and a growing technology gap with the United States create fresh urgency for action.
US President-elect Donald Trump has promised to impose tariffs on most if not all imports and said Europe would pay a heavy price for having run a large trade surplus with the US for decades.
"The geopolitical environment has also become less favorable, with growing threats to free trade from all corners of the world," Lagarde said in a speech, without directly referring to Trump.
"The urgency to integrate our capital markets has risen."
While Europe has made some progress, EU members tend to water down most proposals to protect vested national interests to the detriment of the bloc as a whole, Reuters quoted Lagarde as saying.
But this is taking hundreds of billions if not trillions of euros out of the economy as households are holding 11.5 trillion euros in cash and deposits, and much of this is not making its way to the firms that need the funding.
"If EU households were to align their deposit-to-financial assets ratio with that of US households, a stock of up to 8 trillion euros could be redirected into long-term, market-based investments – or a flow of around 350 billion euros annually," Lagarde said.
When the cash actually enters the capital market, it often stays within national borders or leaves for the US in hope of better returns, Lagarde added.
Europe therefore needs to reduce the cost of investing in capital markets and must make the regulatory regime easier for cash to flow to places where it is needed the most.
A solution might be to create an EU-wide regulatory regime on top of the 27 national rules and certain issuers could then opt into this framework.
"To bypass the cumbersome process of regulatory harmonization, we could envisage a 28th regime for issuers of securities," Lagarde said. "They would benefit from a unified corporate and securities law, facilitating cross-border placement, holding and settlement."
Still, that would not solve the problem that few innovative companies set up shop in Europe, partly due to the lack of funding. So Europe must make it easier for investment to flow into venture capital and for banks to fund startups, she said.