Morocco's unemployment rate hits 12.4 pct in Q2

Morocco's unemployment rate rose to 12.4 percent in the second quarter of 2023, up from 11.2 percent in the same period last year, the High Commission for Planning (HCP), the kingdom's national statistics office, said on Thursday.

The number of unemployed people hit 1,543,000 in the second quarter of 2023, up from 1,387,000 in the second quarter of 2022, the HCP said in a press release.

It further stated that the unemployment rate in rural regions increased from 4.2 percent in the second quarter of 2022 to 5.7 percent in the second quarter of 2023, while the unemployment rate in urban areas increased from 15.5 percent to 16.3 percent.

Meanwhile, Morocco's trade deficit widened by 61.6 percent year-on-year in the first half of 2023 to 14 billion U.S. dollars due to imports of energy and wheat, according to the North African country's foreign exchange regulator.