Despite recent efforts by authorities, young university graduates in Morocco still have difficulty finding jobs.
Created after the February 20th protests, Morocco's Economic and Social Council (CES) was tasked with addressing the thorny issue of youth unemployment. But despite action by authorities, including the recruitment of over 4,000 PhD students to public sector jobs, many young Moroccans remain unable to find work.
All possible ways of finding a solution to this extremely complicated situation must be sought by way of concrete proposals, including opportunities in certain promising sectors such as the green economy, according to CES Chairman Chakib Benmoussa.
The council identified a number of priority areas, namely youth employment, training and retention policies, and plans for the cultural integration of young people.
The government's policies have revealed their limitations, economist Ahmed Boundil said. He asserted that the council must start with vocational training, with a view to preparing young people to enter the labour market. He believes that the recent recruitment of thousands of people with PhDs and masters degrees to the public sector is not an effective or sustainable measure and does not solve the problem, because thousands of new graduates leave Moroccan universities every year.
It is understandable that young graduates are demanding the right to work, but their request to be recruited into the public sector is incomprehensible, Bank al-Maghreb Governor Abdellatif Jouahri told reporters on March 29th.
"We must open up both the public and private sectors to them, provide them with skills and reform the training system. Recruiting workers to the public sector to fill a gap will only have an effect in the short term, it won't solve the issue in the long term," the bank chief said.
The business intelligence unit established by the government in 2009 to help sectors hit by the global economic crisis also devoted its March 16th meeting to the issue of employment. The finance ministry said that steps would be taken to train young people while providing them a state-guaranteed income for the duration of their training.
Morocco will also negotiate with businesses on the recruitment of graduates at the end of their training. The aim is to create 150,000 new jobs in 2011, as compared with 120,000 in 2010.
There are a certain number of requirements that must be met if jobs are to be created, according to the General Confederation of Businesses in Morocco (CGEM). Those include the creation of a favourable business environment as well as one that is attractive to investors. Employers said that Morocco has the capacity to create between 2.5 and 3.5 million additional jobs by 2020.
CGEM also put forward its own programme for the government to tackle unemployment, focusing on vocational training in order to help those whose skills do not meet the needs of the labour market.
© Magharebia.com 2011
