Baku, Azerbaijan, June 7
By Fatih Karimov - Trend:
Some 40 percent of Iranian university graduates are jobless, Minister of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare Ali Rabiei said.
"In order to attain a single-digit inflation rate, some 800,000-900,000 jobs should be created," Iran's Fars news agency quoted Rabiei as saying on June 7.
The number of jobless university graduates will rise in the future, he noted.
Around 22 million people are working in the country, of them some 7 million are working in unofficial positions, he added.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has described unemployment along with inflation as the biggest preoccupation of his administration.
The Iranian economy is still reeling from two years of stagflation marked by a malignant mix of inflation, slumping growth and high unemployment.
Iran created 400,000 jobs in its production and industry sectors in the past fiscal year, ended on March 20, after subtracting 200,000 workers who were laid off.
About 600,000 people were given compulsory insurance coverage during the period where 200,000 job holders were dropped in industrial units.