Labor Minister: Unemployment rate will not change even if one million jobs are created per year
The Iranian parliament held a closed-door session on Sunday to discuss the issue of unemployment, and the Minister of Cooperatives, Labor, and Social Welfare and the Parliamentary Research Center announced in the session that even if one million jobs are created each year, the current unemployment rate will not change until 1400.
Mehr News Agency, citing an unnamed representative, reported that the Minister of Labor announced the number of unemployed people in the country at 3.2 million.
According to this report, Ali Rabiei also said in this meeting that even if one million jobs are created every year, the unemployment rate will not decrease until 1400.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani also said hours after the Leader of the Islamic Republic's Nowruz message that 800,000 graduates enter the job market annually, and if 700,000 jobs are created annually, another 500,000 people will be added to the unemployed.
Mr. Rouhani, in a similar warning on November 2, 2016, said that in 2016, 1.2 million job seekers entered the labor market, but the government does not have the capacity to respond to this number of applicants.
The Statistical Center of Iran announced that the unemployment rate reached 12.3 percent in the fall of 2016, a decrease of four-tenths of a percentage point compared to the summer.
Hassan Rouhani's government officials have also announced that the previous government created "only 14,000" jobs.
The Minister of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare also emphasized that, according to a report by the Statistics Center, the previous government created "at best, only 75,000" job opportunities annually.
Ahmadinejad's government officials had previously announced that "eight million jobs" had been created under his administration.
Meanwhile, Akbar Ranjbarzadeh, a member of the parliamentary presidium, said that the statistics announced by the Minister of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare and the Parliamentary Research Center regarding the unemployment of three million people differ from each other.
He announced that the Minister of Labor has announced the unemployment rate at 3 million 200 thousand people, and the research center has announced the rate at 6 million 500 thousand to 7 million people.
According to Mr. Ranjbarzadeh, according to the research center's report, if one million jobs are created per year, the current unemployment rate will continue in 1400.
In November 2016, the Parliamentary Research Center warned of the increase in unemployment and its consequences, stating that by 2021, there will be more than four million unemployed people in the country.
Source: Radio Farda
