Iran issued nearly 200,000 work permits for Afghan citizens in the year ending March 2020, Minister of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare Mohammad Shariatmadri said in a meeting with his Afghan counterpart Sayed Anwar Sadat recently.
“Over 30,000 Afghans now own businesses in Iran, thanks to improved working conditions. More than three million Afghan citizens live in Iran,” he was quoted as saying by IRNA.
Ali Hossein Shahrivar, a senior official with the ministry, said Iranian people are willing to make common cause with Afghans to achieve common good from their labor markets.
“Legal immigrants who secure work permits can enjoy the same government-backed services like insurance coverage as Iranian workers. For example, they were paid a total of 30 billion rials in workplace injury damages last year,” he said.
The official noted that more than 700,000 immigrants are now working illegally in Iran.
Data provided by the Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare show arrivals of foreign nationals into Iran for work during the last fiscal year (March 2019-20) decline by 60.96% compared with the year before.
A total of 4,809 work visas were granted last year compared with 7,741 in the year ending March 2019.
Khorasan Razavi topped the list of highest arrivals with 766 while Kurdestan was the only Iranian province that did not receive any foreign nationals with work permit last year.
A total of 5,852 work permits were issued for skilled foreign workers last year, 6,036 permits were extended and 341 permits were renewed.
The ministry cancelled 5,384 work permits last year. A total of 173,339 temporary work permits, which are onlyvalid for three months, were issued and 25,638 were extended.
The government earned 409,350 million rials ($2.07 million) from issuing work permits and penalizing employers who hired illegal aliens last year, compared with 260,000 million in the previous year.
The increase in government revenues is thanks to the rise in tariffs for issuing permits and penalties: penalty for employers hiring illegal foreign workers was five times more than the daily wage of a legal worker.
The ministry conducted 83,410 inspections last year and identified 36,846 illegal employments and took court action against 6,465 employers who hired illegal migrants.
It was reported in April that following the coronavirus outbreak in a number of cities in Iran, many Afghan refugees started returning to their homes in Afghanistan, but after an agreement between Tehran and Kabul in connection with curing coronavirus-infected Afghan refugees in Iranian hospitals free of charge, the return of Afghan families reduced by 83%.
“The return of Afghans from Iran to Afghanistan has continually reduced during the past few weeks, as Covid-19-infected Afghans are now accepted for treatment in Iranian hospitals,” Abdul Basit Ansari, media advisor to Afghanistan Ministry of Refugees and Repatriate, was quoted as saying by Kabul Times.
Ansari said that since the beginning of March, 240,000 Afghan refugees have voluntarily returned home from Iran.
