Tehran, Iran, February 25
By Mehdi Sepahvand –- Trend:
Iran’s unemployment rate has been on the rise over the past years and only strong private sector and investment would be able to solve the problem.
“Unfortunately, from 2007 on investment in Iran grew negatively and it stayed negative for a number fo years. We should prepare the ground for the private sector to make more investment,” First Vice President Es’haq Jahangiri told a conference on industry, investment, and energy, Trend correspondent reported February 25.
“Today an annual number of 1.2 million people are looking for jobs. Even if we manage to create jobs fir this number of people, we will still have 3 million other unemployed people,” the official said, adding, “Jobs will not come by but only through economic growth and investment.”
“In the 20-year development outlook, of which 10 years have passed, an economic growth rate of 8 percent has been envisioned. Now economic growth stands at 3 percent. If we managed to improve it to 8 percent and the economic growth is a job-creating one, about 800 to 900 thousand jobs per year will be created.”
President Hassan Rouhani recently said his administration has taken a big step in establishing 700,000 jobs in one year to tackle unemployment.
Based on the criteria of the International Labour Organization (ILO), unemployment rate in Iran is 11 percent, that is, 2.5 million unemployed people.