Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 23
By Khalid Kazimov – Trend:
Concerns are growing in Iran over seasonal workers as they are facing the challenge of pensions and insurance.
The head of the Iranian supreme Islamic council of labor, Olia Ali-Beigi, has said that the seasonal workers are involved in agricultural sector so a large group of these workers get unemployed in autumn and look for new jobs, Mehr news agency reported.
Although employers in the country provide seasonal workers with insurance, the coverage is limited to the period of the contracts.
The workers who are employed for a particular period of the year enjoy labor benefits only during the employment period, about half of the year.
Agricultural workers as well as fishers and constructors are among the most vulnerable seasonal workers.
Ali-Beigi called on the government to take required measures to protect such workers and said a group of seasonal workers are involved in black market activities and they are deprived form the social security insurance.
He added that no official statistics is available on the number of the seasonal workers in the country.
Iran’s insurance penetration rate hit 2.2 percent at the end of the last fiscal year (March 20)