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2012-06-17
Morocco finds new ways to help jobless youth
By Sham Ali for Magharebia in Rabat – 17/06/12
Morocco and its international partners are looking at innovative strategies to boost youth job opportunities.
The issue has become a high priority in the kingdom, as Moroccan unemployed youth have put pressure on the government through demonstrations, meetings, and by seeking support from the National Human Rights Advisory Council.
With 250,000 young people entering the job market every year, youth employment is a primary concern for all stakeholders in Morocco, according to Industry and Trade Minister Abdelkader Amara.
![[AFP/Abdelhak Senna] Former Moroccan Finance Minister Salaheddine Mezouar (left), seen here with World Bank President Robert Zoellick last year, is encouraging entrepreneurship in Morocco.](/awi/images/2012/06/17/120617Feature1Photo1-650_429.jpg)
The challenge is to train skilled human resources in order to meet the demand for 360,000 jobs in the sector by 2020, Amara said.
Possible solutions have come from a range of sources, he explained. The government plans to launch a training scheme in the retail sector, which has 1.4 million workers and makes the fourth-largest contribution to GDP.
The National Rally of Independents (RNI) proposed a law to create incentives for a "self-enterprise system" known as "Bidaya" (start) that includes simplified administrative, fiscal and social measures.
People who have ideas for businesses should be helped by making the start-up requirements less onerous, said RNI chairman Salaheddine Mezouar.
The opposition party's idea is to allow people to start businesses over the internet with no initial capital and a flat tax rate of 3%, he explained. This measure would be applied to trading companies that turn over less than 1 million dirhams and service companies with turnover of less than 500,000 dirhams, he said.
These businesses must be helped to win public contracts and all business expenses should be 100% tax-deductible to encourage them to become self-employed and enable anyone to create their own company, he said.
"We need to create something good out of failures, as happens in Anglo-Saxon business culture", Mezouar concluded.
The World Bank has also taken an interest in youth employment in Morocco.
In its May 14th report entitled "Promoting Youth Opportunities and Participation in Morocco", the World Bank explained that based on a 2011 survey of 2,883 young people in the urban workforce, nearly 30% of young Moroccans aged between 15 and 29 were unemployed.
According to the report, it is time to engage in dialogue with employers to ensure that young people can make the most of their potential. The World Bank advocated co-operation between the government and young people to seek suitable solutions and recommended that young people be included in the decision-making process.
The research focused on Morocco's two-speed education system— with private schools educating the elite in French and public schools teaching mainly in Arabic. With employers requiring workers to speak French, graduates from the public system become alienated.
World Bank analyst Gloria La Cava said that these recommendations should be implemented through inclusive programmes involving both the public and private sectors and civil-society organisations.
She stressed that policies should be adopted to help young people secure jobs by improving training, offering real job opportunities and tackling illegal work.
Sociologist Samira Kassimi agreed. This is what the government is currently trying to do, she explained.
But the road will be long one and with many obstacles because young graduates—especially those who have been out of work for years—do not want to attend any more training courses so they can get jobs, she said.
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POST YOUR COMMENT 4
hamza 2013-1-28
I agree with this comment. However, we shouldn't forget that people play an important role in this issue. For example, we notice that famous proverbs in our country are all triggered by fear. For example, walk from wall to wall and don't be afraid. There are many other similar proverbs. However, if we want to change this homeland, we must change ourselves firstly because God says "Indeed, Allah will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves". Therefore, we have to do it.
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zaza 2012-7-9
The solution is quite simple and boils down to the budgeting technique: change the destination of all the resources allocated to the monarchy and allocate them to the legitimate and primary needs of the people and the youth first and foremost. May the King get a hold on his gigantic personal assets and the astronomical expenditures of his family, which is as numerous as useless and harmful. This would only be justice because these funds were stolen from the people. A just reprisal will prevail one day or another – either calmly in a transition to a parliamentary monarchy or in a revolution, not of the Arab spring model, but of the 1789 model. Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette would have been well advised to pass the hand and restore power to the sovereign people. M6 is not smart enough to anticipate this and ill advised. (Counsellors are never the ones who pay!) He will let himself get backed up against a wall! The ones advising him are foremost running their own small and big schemes in the world and practicing the philosophy of “After me, the flood!” The flood is, alas, inevitable...
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Ahmed 2012-6-23
In reality, I agree with the writer of this text. We need these young people to work. People who reached the age of retirement should just eat what they have. Young people are very lost. They can’t wait any more.
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عبد المولى بنمحمد 2012-6-18
Morocco is experiencing a structural crisis which has produced the economic and social situation it is going through. They are the result of accumulation inherited by the new regime. In spite of exerted efforts and suggested solutions, the situation has worsened and thus protests have escalated. Demands have varied. Everyone is seeking to change their situation for the better. On the other hand, the number of graduates from institutes and universities have increased and they couldn’t all be absorbed by the domestic job market. But the question that rises is: if there were a prior plan, would we be experiencing such crisis? Is it not a premature crisis? Is it not a crisis fabricated by the former era? Here is the new era trapped in it. Should physicians be unemployed in a country which has one physician for every 10000 citizens? Should doctors and university graduates be unemployed in a country where the number of students in overcrowded classes reaches 60? Do plants and mines generate billions at the expense of a minority of workers? Should young people be unemployed in a country where cedar trees of forests are sold in the black market without anyone caring or monitoring them? Our problem lies in the lack of the sense of patriotism, death of the jealousy for the nation, a government which set a record in the number of ministers and minister delegates, legislative chambers with empty chairs while the accounts of their owners increase, lucky ones and those in decision-making position evade paying taxes, aren’t these people the ones who impoverished our homeland? Aren’t these people the ones behind the unemployment of young people? They are driving us to a dark morrow. For the nation, everything is bearable except starvation and humiliation??? So have compassion for this dear nation!
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