Labor mobility, economic shocks and jobless growth evidence from panel data in Morocco^†

Abstract

During the past twenty years, Morocco has implemented a wide range of macroeconomic, social and labor market reforms that have delivered in terms of GDP growth and household welfare. Yet, these positive developments are not reflected by the main labor market indicators, a phenomenon observed elsewhere in developed and developing economies alike and labeled as "jobless growth". For the first time in Morocco, this paper investigates the question of labor mobility using quarterly panel data in an effort to determine whether people have moved to better sectors and jobs. Results point to significant labor mobility between labor statuses with quite distinct features across population groups. All groups experience some form of labor market mobility every quarter and women are as mobile as men. However, the transitions that women experience are very different from the transitions that men experience and women's performance is worse than men's performance in almost all aspects of labor mobility.

Female Labor Participation in the Arab World: Evidence from Panel Data in Morocco

“…The period covered by this study (1999–12) was a period characterized by sustained growth, averaging four per cent a year, and by a very rich set of macroeconomic and social reforms that transformed the Moroccan economy. For most of the period considered, macroeconomic stability reigned in Morocco and GDP growth trickled down effectively to the population so that the country was able to deliver in terms of household income and poverty reduction (see Douidich et al ., 2013 and Verme et al ., for a full description of reforms and the economic performance of Morocco during the last two decades).…”

“…Consistent with Verme et al . (), women are more likely to be either not educated and better employed in low skills jobs or highly educated and in search of work or employed in the public sector. In a sense, the system failed to make use of the vast majority of women who completed secondary education by creating jobs in labor‐intensive sectors that require middle‐level skills.…”

“…The statistical overview depicted a country that performed well in terms of macro and microeconomic developments and much less well in terms of labor market outcomes, particularly for women. FPRs declined slowly but steadily between 1999 and 2012 and a recent work on labor mobility in Morocco (Verme et al ., ) found women to have performed worse than men on all dimensions of labor mobility considered. A recent study on FPRs in MENA countries (Verme, ) also found Morocco to underperform comparatively to other countries at similar levels of economic development.…”

“…In particular, the performance of the labor force has been very asymmetric between genders. Females experienced a decline in the employment rate and no improvements in the unemployment rate while labor mobility across jobs, occupations, or sectors has been worse for females than for males by all counts (Verme et al, 2016). Quarterly data on FPRs (Figure 1) show that: (1) the FPR declines over time in both urban and rural areas; (2) the FPR rate is higher in rural areas as compared with urban areas; (3) the urban-rural gap increases over time, and (4) the rural FPR has been more volatile than the urban FPR.…”

Humans and Machines at Work: Monitoring, Surveillance and Automation in Contemporary Capitalism

“…This is largely because of the vigour with which new technologies have entered the market, as well as the increasing levels of sophistication, which introduces new and increased concerns both in policy and industry. As growing research shows that, unlike the situation prior to the 1960s, the effect of the new technologies developed and implemented post-1990s is significant with transformations of occupations, job roles and entire industries (Acemoglu and Robinson, 2012;Mokyr et al, 2015;Verme et al, 2016). The discussion is, therefore, no longer just about such considerations as de-skilling the workforce (Braveman, 1974), but rather, a total transformation of existing skills and rendering entire occupational skills redundant (Jaimovich and Siu, 2012;Charles et al, 2013).…”