Tehran, Iran, Oct. 10
By Milad Fashtami - Trend:
Head of Iran's Labor and Social Security Institute Mohammad-Reza Sepehri said that currently 9.5 million people are unemployed in the country.
He put the number of employed Iranians at 22 million, Iran's ISNA news agency reported on October 10.
"The country's economy is snapping out of recession and moving towards economic growth," Sepehri explained, noting that Iran's unemployment rate is still high.
In the past few months some contradictory reports have been released regarding Iran's unemployment rate.
Minister of Cooperative, Labor and Welfare Ali Rabi'ee said on September 21 that currently 6 million people are unemployed in Iran.
College graduates account for the lion share of the mentioned figure.
The figure will reach 10 million in the next seven years, according to Rabiee, Iran's Mehr news agency reported on September 21.
The Statistical Center of Iran puts the number of Iran's so-called absolute unemployed at 2.5 million.
The center previously announced that the unemployment rate stands at 10.7 percent.
Based on international standards, the country is currently struggling with a crisis related to the unemployment rate of youths (under the age of 30).
Rabi'ee, however, said that currently 22 million people are employed in Iran, promising that the figure will reach 35 million in 7 years.
"Currently there are 2 million job opportunities in the country that no one is willing to take," he said, explaining that the college graduates' unwillingness to do certain jobs has given the opportunity to foreign immigrants to take the jobs.
The country's unemployment rate in previous winter stood at 10.5 percent, according to the Statistical Center of Iran.
The unemployment rate in the mentioned three-month period, which ended on March 20, was 1.8 percent less than in the same period of preceding year, Iran's IRIB news agency reported on June 24.
The country's urban and rural unemployment rate in the mentioned period stood at 11.3 and 8.7 percent, respectively.
Unemployment among men and women were also around 9.1 and 18.9 percent, respectively.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said in December that job creation is the most significant issue in the future of the country's economy, while the combination of inflation and stagnation is now the most important problem.
"Tackling high inflation and unemployment are top priorities of the government," Rouhani said before presenting the Iranian parliament (Majlis) his government's first budget plan.
Some 20.3 percent of youths between the age of 15 to 29 were jobless in Iran in the mentioned three-month period.