Azerbaijan, Baku, Feb.26 / Trend F.Mehdi/
Over 2.688 million people were unemployed in Iran by the end of the autumn in 2012, the Mehr News Agency reported, citing the Statistics Centre of Iran.
However, the number of jobless decreased by 326,170 compared to the summer. Some 76 per cent of the total unemployed are between 15 and 29 years of age.
Iran's unemployment rate in the autumn 2012 hit 11.2 per cent, down 0.6 per cent compared to the figure of the previous autumn.
The jobless rate was 11.1 per cent in the spring, according to the report.
Some one million new jobs were created in the first half of the current Iranian calendar year which began on March 20, 2012.
During the previous year, the nation's working population was 25 million, the report added.
According to Etemad Persian language daily, the administration had pledged to create 2.5 million jobs in the current (calendar) year.
Those aged 20-24 years are the most unemployed group in Iran with an unemployment rate of 29.8 per cent.
Just 10 per cent of economic activities in Iran are carried out by women, the Mehr News Agency quoted Tehran chamber of commerce official Mohsen Bahrami Arz-Aqdas as saying.
Women account for half of the country's active working population, but they just hold a 10 per cent share in national economic activities, he added.
Despite the fact that the number of female university graduates is on the rise, women's share in managerial jobs is not considerable, he noted.
Iran's high council of employment plans to create 1.1 million jobs in the next Iranian calendar year which begins on March 21, the Mehr News agency quoted Iranian deputy labour minister Ali-Akbar Labbafi as saying.
The fifth five-year economic development plan (2010-2015) has envisaged creating 1.1 million jobs per year, he added.
During the past two years, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's administration has created up to 3.2 million job opportunities, he said.