Tehran Province, wherein lies the capital city, saw the lowest unemployment rate of 6% among all Iranian provinces in the fourth quarter of last Iranian year (Dec. 22, 2021-March 20) while East Azarbaijan registered the highest unemployment rate of 18.3%.
According to the Statistical Center of Iran, 11 provinces, namely Alborz (10.7%), North Khorasan (10.8%), Kerman (11.2%), Khuzestan (11.6%), Chaharmahal-Bakhtiari (12.4%), Hormozgan (13.2%), Ardabil (14%), Lorestan (14.5%), Kurdestan (16.7%), Kermanshah (17.9%) and West Azarbaijan (18.3%) registered double-digit unemployment rates for people of ages 15 and above in Q4.
Yazd had the highest labor force participation rate (47.1%) and Ilam had the lowest labor force participation rate (33.4%), whereas Tehran registered a 40.8% participation rate in Q4.
Yazd registered the highest employment rate of 44.9% while Ilam filed the lowest employment rate of 31.1% among all Iranian provinces. Tehran’s employment rate stood at 38.4%.
Iran’s overall unemployment rate, the proportion of the jobless population of ages 15 and above, stood at 9.4% in Q4, indicating a 0.3% year-on-year decline.
According to the new SCI report, a total of 2.4 million Iranians were unemployed in Q4. Men’s unemployment stood at 8.4% while the rate for women hovered around 14.9%.
Over 1.81 million men and 653,609 women of ages 15 and above were jobless in Q4.
The unemployment rate was 9.9% for urban areas (1.92 million people) and 8% for rural areas (487,103 people).
SCI put Q4 labor force participation rate — the proportion of the population of ages 15 and above that is economically active either employed or looking for a job — at 40.4% or 2.56 million people, registering a 0.5% decrease year-on-year.
Men’s and women’s economic participation rates were 68% and 12.8% respectively in the same period.
A total of 21.52 million men and 4.06 million women of ages 15 and above were economically active in Q4, i.e., they were either employed or looking for a job.
Q4 statistics show that 36.7% of the country’s labor force worked more than 49 hours per week, indicating a 1% increase over the same period of last year.
