Tehran, Iran, May 4
By Kamyar Eghbalnejad - Trend:
Mahmoud Vaezi, the Iranian president's chief of staff, said nearly three million people, mostly young people, are still out of the workforce in the country, IRNA reported.
“Nearly three million people are looking for job in the country and we cannot remain indifferent to their unemployment who are mainly young,” Vaezi said during a meeting in the eastern Iranian city of Mashhad on Thursday.
Creating job opportunities for the youth and helping them enter the labor market are among the government’s top priorities, he added.
The senior Iranian official further said the private sector could play a key role in tackling the unemployment in the country.
Iran’s unemployment rate in the third quarter of last year’s fiscal year (Sept. 23-Dec. 21, 2017) stood at 11.9 percent, registering a 0.4 percent drop compared to the same period of last year and a 0.2 percent increase compared to the previous quarter, the latest report by the Statistical Center of Iran shows.
Youth unemployment rate, i.e. the proportion of the population between the ages of 15 and 29, stood at 25 percent in Q3.