Azerbaijan, Baku, May 14/ Trend F.Milad/
Iran's High Council of Employment has approved allocating 45 trillion rials (some $37 billion) to job creation plans in the current calendar year which began on March 20, the deputy cooperatives, labour, and social welfare minister said.
Mehr News Agency quoted Mohammad-Hossein Forouzanmehr as saying that some 1.6 million jobs were created last year.
The unemployment rate in Iran stood at 12.3 per cent in the past calendar year, which ended on March 19, showing a 1.2 per cent fall compared to its preceding year, the Statistical Centre of Iran reported on Saturday.
The IRNA News Agency quoted the report as saying that the number of jobless individuals has reduced to 2.8 million from 3.2 million year on year.
To keep the current unemployment rate steady some $200 billion should be invested to create one million jobs annually, the Iranian vice Majlis speaker said.
"In the most optimistic case, all the money which can be allocated to job creation does not exceed 80 billion dollars. So, to create one million jobs annually, the country is facing a $120 billion deficit," Mohammad-Reza Bahonar told the ILNA news agency in February.
Cooperatives, Labour, and Social Welfare Minister Abdolreza Sheikholeslami has said that the country plans to cut its unemployment rate to seven per cent by the end of 2012 in line with the fifth socio-economic development plan (2010-2015). The ministry has proposed a plan for sending up to 100,000 labourers abroad by 2015 in a bid to ease unemployment with 18 countries identified as targets for the Iranian workforce.