Azerbaijan, Baku, Dec.2/ Trend G.Mehdi/
Iran plans to create 2.1 million jobs by the end of the current Iranian calendar year, which ends on March 2013, but creation of just 1.3 million jobs is likely, the Mehr News Agency quoted Davood Qaderi, a member of the Iranian High Council of Employment as saying.
The council has approved 1.96 trillion rials (about $160 billion) to job creation plans in the current year, he added.
Cooperatives, Labor, and Social Welfare Minister Abdolreza Sheikholeslami said the unemployment rate is planned to be cut to seven percent by the end of the fifth socio-economic development plan (March 2016.)
To this end, 5.5 million new jobs should be created, he noted.
According to Sheikholeslami, Iran's High Council of Employment has approved allocating 45 trillion rials (some $37 billion) to job creation in the current calendar year.
First Vice President Mohammadreza Rahimi said that the administration of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has created jobs as much as twice of the figure it promised during the past two years.
Rahimi added that if non-Iranian workers leave the country, the unemployment rate will not exceed one or two percent.