Morocco youth unemployment hits 30.5% in third quarter of 2026

Almost one in three young people in Morocco who want a job cannot find one. The country's official statistics agency, the High Commission for Planning (HCP), said on Tuesday, 3 November 2026, that unemployment among people aged 15 to 24 rose to 30.5% in the third quarter of 2026 (July to September), up from 27.2% in the second quarter. The national unemployment rate rose to 10.5% from 9.5%. The figures come from a new labour force survey that the agency says follows updated international standards, so they cannot be compared directly with older numbers.

Youth unemployment is the share of young people who are looking for work but do not have it. It leaves out students who are not looking, which is why a second number, the employment rate, also matters. In Morocco only 16.2% of people aged 15 to 24 had a job in the quarter. Many are in school or college, but the gap between the two numbers shows how few young people are moving into work.

The rise came in a single quarter, and the agency's figures show that rural areas drove most of the fall in employment. Much rural work is seasonal, so a change in the season can move many young rural workers out of jobs at once. The figures for women point to a deeper problem: at 16.7%, women's unemployment is almost twice that of men.

The numbers matter beyond Morocco. Many countries with young populations, India among them, face the same question of how to turn a large number of young people into a working, earning generation. Morocco's new survey also shows why the method behind a number matters. Comparing the new 30.5% with older figures on the previous method would give a misleading picture, a point that applies whenever a statistics agency changes how it measures jobs.

For young readers, the lesson is in the details. A headline unemployment rate hides differences by age, place and gender. When a government or a report quotes a single jobless figure, it is worth asking: for which age group, in towns or villages, for men or women, and measured how?

Peepals calculation: the rise from 27.2% to 30.5% is 3.3 percentage points, which means the youth jobless rate is about 12% higher than a quarter earlier (30.5 / 27.2 = 1.12). Women's unemployment is about 1.9 times men's (16.7 / 8.7 = 1.92). The national figures also check out: 10.5% of a labour force of 11.7 million is about 1.2 million people without work, leaving about 10.5 million in work (11.7 x 0.895 = 10.47). Our calculation from the reported figures.

Short-term: the jump puts youth jobs back at the centre of Morocco's economic debate, and the government will face questions on rural employment and training programmes.

Long-term: if a large share of young people stay out of work for years, they lose skills and earnings that are hard to recover, which is why countries with young populations watch these numbers closely.

Who is affected: young job seekers in Morocco, especially in rural areas and young women; employers and training bodies; and policy makers in other countries with large youth populations who track similar data.

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