Unemployment rate falls to 8% thanks to agriculture
17 January 2010
Read by 2017 persons
Unemployment fell by one percentage point in one year. 232,000 net jobs were created, including 196,000 in agriculture. The food processing, transport, communication and textile sectors saw the biggest job losses.
[Unemployment rate falls to 8% thanks to agriculture] As if anticipating that the information he was about to deliver would be hard to accept, Ahmed Lahlimi Alami, High Commissioner for Planning (HCP), had to take a long methodological detour before revealing his figure: 8%, that’s the unemployment rate calculated at the end of the second quarter of 2009.
It is true that announcing a one-point drop in unemployment during a crisis is not an easy task; especially in the face of a public opinion that, for various reasons, believes it detects some hidden intention behind any announcement, good or bad. You almost have to apologize to present such a statistic; and Mr. Lahlimi, anticipating the skepticism of some, and even many, felt he had to, during his press conference on Monday, July 27, relativize the weight of his official announcement himself: the second quarters of each year, he said in essence, are almost always characterized by a decline in unemployment and, consequently, an eventual rise should be expected in the third quarter, a period often marked by the arrival of new graduates on the labor market.
In reality, when, on the one hand, one knows the weight of the primary sector (agriculture, forestry and fishing) in employment in Morocco and, on the other hand, one realizes an exceptional agricultural campaign like this year's (more than 100 million quintals of cereals), the drop in unemployment from 9.1% to 8% between the second quarters of 2008 and 2009 seems almost to follow logically. It must be seen that the primary sector, although down more than 5 points compared to the last decade, still represents 41% of total employment, exceeding services, the second largest employer, by 4 points. When, in addition, the active population is almost two-thirds (65%) without a diploma, its employability is then relatively easy, particularly during periods when the job offer is high, as is the case in a good agricultural year.
Given this data, the 8% unemployment rate should not ultimately be surprising, especially since the HCP, admitted since 2005 to the IMF's Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS), has significantly improved its investigation methods and expanded its surveyed sample from 48,000 to 60,000 households.
Examination of the behavior of the sectors of activity, as it emerges from the HCP survey, shows how strongly agriculture contributed to the announced result. Indeed, of the 232,000 net jobs created in the second quarter of 2009, 196,000 were in agriculture, forestry and fishing, including 176,000 in rural areas and 20,000 in the outskirts of cities. The construction industry created 40,000 jobs (32,000 in urban areas and 8,000 in rural areas) and services 11,000 (creation of 42,000 in cities and loss of 31,000 jobs in rural areas). As for industry, including crafts, it lost 7,000 jobs, with 23,000 created in urban areas but 30,000 lost in rural areas.
57,000 jobs lost in cities
Very clearly, this employment configuration confirms, to a small extent, the evolution of the economic situation observed during the first part of 2009. It will be recalled that the first quarter saw almost zero growth in non-agricultural activities, and the second quarter, although showing signs of a turnaround in some sectors, remains globally marked by stagnation. This is particularly true for industry which, in the fourth quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009, recorded negative growth of -4% and -1% respectively. And even in the second quarter, only a slight improvement is expected (national accounts not yet finalized for this period). Even services suffered from the situation, although achieving positive added value, but in decline.
It is therefore no coincidence that it is mainly in cities, where industrial activities are generally located, that most job losses were recorded in the second quarter. Thus, the textile, hosiery and clothing, leather and footwear sector lost 24,000 jobs, the transport, warehousing and communication sector 25,000 jobs, food industries 8,000 jobs and extractive industries 1,000 jobs. In total, 57,000 jobs were lost in cities. But cities also, despite everything, created jobs in construction (+32,000 jobs), in banks, insurance and real estate (+29,000 jobs), and in personal and domestic services (+14,000 jobs).
In total, thanks to agriculture, what was lost here was recovered there, which explains this significant drop in unemployment. Moreover, as operators have observed, throughout the spring that has just ended and even today, labor has become scarce and above all expensive. Real estate developers and construction professionals, accustomed to using labor driven from the countryside by drought, know something about it.
That said, and as the HCP pointed out, in the next quarter, things may evolve differently, even if the downward trend in unemployment has not been (too strongly) contradicted for a long time. 122,000 fewer unemployed in one year: City dwellers aged 25-34 benefited the most.
Between the second quarter of 2008 and its equivalent in 2009, the number of unemployed fell by 122,000 people (-11.8%), from 1,033,000 to 911,000 unemployed, thus placing the unemployment rate at 8% compared to 9.1% a year ago, according to the HCP survey. This decline benefited both urban (12.6% vs. 14%) and rural areas (3% vs. 3.9%). By age group, unemployment among 15-24 year-olds in cities increased slightly by 0.7 percentage points, from 30% to 30.7%, and fell sharply (-2.1%) in rural areas, falling from 8.5% to 6.4%. For 25-34 year-olds, on the other hand, it was city dwellers who benefited most from the decline in unemployment: 17.1% compared to 19.9% a year earlier (i.e. -2.8 percentage points). In addition, the rate of feminization of the unemployed population increased by 2.7 percentage points, from 27.3% to 30%.
Salah Agueniou
Published August 3, 2009
Posted online August 25, 2009
lavieeco.com
[Unemployment rate falls to 8% thanks to agriculture] As if anticipating that the information he was about to deliver would be hard to accept, Ahmed Lahlimi Alami, High Commissioner for Planning (HCP), had to take a long methodological detour before revealing his figure: 8%, that’s the unemployment rate calculated at the end of the second quarter of 2009.
It is true that announcing a one-point drop in unemployment during a crisis is not an easy task; especially in the face of a public opinion that, for various reasons, believes it detects some hidden intention behind any announcement, good or bad. You almost have to apologize to present such a statistic; and Mr. Lahlimi, anticipating the skepticism of some, and even many, felt he had to, during his press conference on Monday, July 27, relativize the weight of his official announcement himself: the second quarters of each year, he said in essence, are almost always characterized by a decline in unemployment and, consequently, an eventual rise should be expected in the third quarter, a period often marked by the arrival of new graduates on the labor market.
In reality, when, on the one hand, one knows the weight of the primary sector (agriculture, forestry and fishing) in employment in Morocco and, on the other hand, one realizes an exceptional agricultural campaign like this year's (more than 100 million quintals of cereals), the drop in unemployment from 9.1% to 8% between the second quarters of 2008 and 2009 seems almost to follow logically. It must be seen that the primary sector, although down more than 5 points compared to the last decade, still represents 41% of total employment, exceeding services, the second largest employer, by 4 points. When, in addition, the active population is almost two-thirds (65%) without a diploma, its employability is then relatively easy, particularly during periods when the job offer is high, as is the case in a good agricultural year.
Given this data, the 8% unemployment rate should not ultimately be surprising, especially since the HCP, admitted since 2005 to the IMF's Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS), has significantly improved its investigation methods and expanded its surveyed sample from 48,000 to 60,000 households.
Examination of the behavior of the sectors of activity, as it emerges from the HCP survey, shows how strongly agriculture contributed to the announced result. Indeed, of the 232,000 net jobs created in the second quarter of 2009, 196,000 were in agriculture, forestry and fishing, including 176,000 in rural areas and 20,000 in the outskirts of cities. The construction industry created 40,000 jobs (32,000 in urban areas and 8,000 in rural areas) and services 11,000 (creation of 42,000 in cities and loss of 31,000 jobs in rural areas). As for industry, including crafts, it lost 7,000 jobs, with 23,000 created in urban areas but 30,000 lost in rural areas.
57,000 jobs lost in cities
Very clearly, this employment configuration confirms, to a small extent, the evolution of the economic situation observed during the first part of 2009. It will be recalled that the first quarter saw almost zero growth in non-agricultural activities, and the second quarter, although showing signs of a turnaround in some sectors, remains globally marked by stagnation. This is particularly true for industry which, in the fourth quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009, recorded negative growth of -4% and -1% respectively. And even in the second quarter, only a slight improvement is expected (national accounts not yet finalized for this period). Even services suffered from the situation, although achieving positive added value, but in decline.
It is therefore no coincidence that it is mainly in cities, where industrial activities are generally located, that most job losses were recorded in the second quarter. Thus, the textile, hosiery and clothing, leather and footwear sector lost 24,000 jobs, the transport, warehousing and communication sector 25,000 jobs, food industries 8,000 jobs and extractive industries 1,000 jobs. In total, 57,000 jobs were lost in cities. But cities also, despite everything, created jobs in construction (+32,000 jobs), in banks, insurance and real estate (+29,000 jobs), and in personal and domestic services (+14,000 jobs).
In total, thanks to agriculture, what was lost here was recovered there, which explains this significant drop in unemployment. Moreover, as operators have observed, throughout the spring that has just ended and even today, labor has become scarce and above all expensive. Real estate developers and construction professionals, accustomed to using labor driven from the countryside by drought, know something about it.
That said, and as the HCP pointed out, in the next quarter, things may evolve differently, even if the downward trend in unemployment has not been (too strongly) contradicted for a long time. 122,000 fewer unemployed in one year: City dwellers aged 25-34 benefited the most.
Between the second quarter of 2008 and its equivalent in 2009, the number of unemployed fell by 122,000 people (-11.8%), from 1,033,000 to 911,000 unemployed, thus placing the unemployment rate at 8% compared to 9.1% a year ago, according to the HCP survey. This decline benefited both urban (12.6% vs. 14%) and rural areas (3% vs. 3.9%). By age group, unemployment among 15-24 year-olds in cities increased slightly by 0.7 percentage points, from 30% to 30.7%, and fell sharply (-2.1%) in rural areas, falling from 8.5% to 6.4%. For 25-34 year-olds, on the other hand, it was city dwellers who benefited most from the decline in unemployment: 17.1% compared to 19.9% a year earlier (i.e. -2.8 percentage points). In addition, the rate of feminization of the unemployed population increased by 2.7 percentage points, from 27.3% to 30%.
Salah Agueniou
Published August 3, 2009
Posted online August 25, 2009
lavieeco.com
