Employment
The 2003 Labour Code, with severance calculated by length of service
Law 65-99 codified employment in 2003, setting a 44-hour week, statutory dismissal procedure and indemnities. Dismissal without a valid reason exposes the employer to damages on a statutory scale.
Key rules
- Jurisdiction — Social chambers of the courts of first instance. CNSS administers social security; the labour inspectorate handles conciliation.
- Deadline — Notice periods run from one to three months depending on category and service
- Deadline — A dismissal hearing must be held within eight days of the alleged misconduct
- Deadline — Claims for unfair dismissal must be brought within 90 days
Governing law
- Labour Code, Law 65-992003
- Law 19-12 on domestic workers2016
- Dahir 1972 on social security, administered by CNSS
- Law 18-12 on workplace accidents
In practice
Moroccan dismissal law is procedural in the strict sense: the employer must convene a hearing within eight days, allow the employee to be accompanied, and produce a written decision, and failure at any of those steps renders the dismissal abusive regardless of the underlying merits. Damages are set on a statutory scale of one and a half months' pay per year of service, capped at 36 months, which makes exposure predictable and quantifiable. The 2016 domestic workers law brought a large previously informal category into the code with its own minimum age and hours rules. CNSS registration is the enforcement lever in practice, and the introduction of mandatory basic health coverage has extended its reach.