Morocco’s unemployment rate dropped to 13.1% in September from 13.6% a year earlier, as services, construction and industry offset jobs lost in the drought-hit farming sector, Morocco’s statistics agency HCP said this Tuesday.

As of the end of September, there were 1.62 million unemployed people in Morocco, a nation of 37 million people, HCP said in a quarterly note.

The unemployment rate was higher among young people, at 38.4%. Among graduates, it stood at 19% and among women, 21.6%.

–Reuters–