Is International Migration a Cure for Moroccan Unemployment

Recently, much research interest has been directed towards the impact of migration on the sending country. However, we think that this literature does not successfully analyse the effects of migration on unemployment and wage rates, especially in urban areas. It studies the effect of one kind of migration flow, mainly international migration, on the labour market in the country of origin and shows that international migration is able to reduce the unemployment rate and/or raise the wage rate. However, it is common to find sending countries simultaneously affected by inflows and outflows of workers. Using a detailed computable general equilibrium (CGE) model applied to the Moroccan economy, we show that if we simultaneously take into account Moroccan emigration to the European Union (EU), immigration from Sub-Saharan Africa into Moroccan urban areas and rural-urban migration, the impact on Moroccan urban labour market disaggregated by professional categories is ambiguous.