Job creation is first duty of Iran new administration

As 16 of the ministerial nominees proposed by President Hassan Rouhani got the parliamentary vote of confidence on Sunday, the president and his Cabinet know exactly what one of their biggest challenges in the new government is: creating sufficient new jobs to catch up on the backlog created in the previous administrations.

Addressing the first Cabinet session of his new term on Sunday, President Rouhani referred to job creation as “the first duty of the new administration” and called on all executive bodies of the government to come up with special plans to tackle unemployment.

The Statistical Center of Iran's latest report on unemployment shows Iran’s unemployment rate stood at 12.6% in the first quarter of the current fiscal year (March 21-June 21), registering a 0.4% rise compared with last year's corresponding period and a 0.1% increase compared with the previous quarter.

The report shows 3.36 million Iranians were unemployed this spring, including 10.6% of men (2.24 million) and 20.8% of women (1.11 million) of ages 10 and above.

According to SCI, the unemployment rate was 14.4% for urban areas and 7.8% for rural areas.

The youth unemployment rate, i.e. the proportion of population of ages between 15 and 29, stood at 26.4% in Q1, indicating a 1.5% rise compared with last year’s corresponding period and a 0.9% increase compared with the previous quarter.

Labor force participation rate—the proportion of population of ages 10 years and above that is economically active either employed or looking for work—in spring was at 40.6% or 26.67 million people, which marks a 1.1% rise year-on-year and a 1.7% increase compared with last winter.

Men’s and women’s economic participation rates were put at 64.5% and 16.4% respectively. The rate was 39.8% for urban areas and 43% for rural areas.

Demand for white-collar jobs for the highly qualified young population has peaked over the past decade, as the prevailing policy of expanding the educational system has encouraged many to pursue higher education in the hope of getting better jobs.

While the average population entering the pool of qualified workforce each year was about 600,000 a decade ago, the number has soared to 900,000 over the past few years, thanks both to the population boom of the 1980s—21 million babies were born between 1980 and 1988—and the backlog created by diverting the working-age population to universities.

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