South Khorasan Province registered the lowest unemployment rate of 5.4% among all Iranian provinces in the third quarter of the current Iranian year (Sept. 23-Dec. 21, 2019) while Kermanshah Province had the highest rate of 16.3%.
Tehran Province, wherein lies the capital city, registered a 9.4% unemployment rate, the Statistical Center of Iran's latest report on Iran's labor market shows.
Thirteen provinces, namely South Khorasan (5.4%), Khorasan Razavi (6.3%), Semnan (7.6%), Ilam (8.1%), Hamedan (8.6%), North Khorasan (8.8%), Markazi Province (9.1%), Bushehr (9.4%), Tehran (9.4%), Zanjan (9.4%), Fars (9.4%), Golestan (9.6%) and Mazandaran (9.8%), registered single-digit unemployment rates for the people of ages 15 and above in Q3.
According to SCI, Iran’s overall unemployment rate, i.e. the proportion of jobless population of ages 15 and above, stood at 10.6% in Q3, indicating a 1.2% decrease compared with the same period of last year.
A total of 2,892,726 Iranians were unemployed in Q3.
Men’s unemployment stood at 8.9% while for women the rate hovered around 17.3%. Over 1.95 million men and 936,002 women of ages 15 and above were jobless in Q3.
The unemployment rate was 11.8% in urban areas (2.39 million people) and 7.1% in rural areas (494,277 people).
The report also shows Khorasan Razavi had the highest labor force participation rate (52.4%) and Markazi Province had the lowest labor force participation rate (37%), whereas Tehran registered a 41.7% participation rate in fall.
According to SCI, Iran's labor force participation rate—the proportion of the population of ages 15 and above that is economically active—either employed or looking for job—stood at 44.3% or 27.33 million people in Q3, registering a 0.2% decrease year-on-year.
Men’s and women’s economic participation rates were 71% and 17.5% respectively in the same period.
SCI reports that 21.93 million men and 5.4 million women of ages 15 and above were economically active in Q3, that is they were either employed or looking for a job.
What's more, Khorasan Razavi registered the highest employment rate of 49.1% while Sistan-Baluchestan filed the lowest employment rate of 32.9% among all Iranian provinces. Tehran’s employment rate stood at 37.8%.
Employment is defined as persons of working age engaged in any activity to produce goods or provide services for pay or profit, whether at work in the reference period or not at work due to a temporary absence from a job, or to working-time arrangement.
The total employment rate of Q3 was 39.6% (24.44 million), up 0.4% compared with the same quarter of last year. Employment rates for men and women were 64.7% and 14.5%, respectively, which constitute 19.97 million men and 4.46 million women in Q3.
The employment rate was 38.1% or 17.93 million in urban areas and 44.4% or 6.51 million in rural areas.
The share of employed university graduates stood at 24.4% of the total employed population, of which male and female graduates constituted 21.3% and 38.2%, respectively. Graduate employment rates in urban and rural areas stood at 30.4% and 7.8% of the total population of job-holders.
Q3 statistics show that 36.5% of the country’s labor force worked more than 49 hours of service per week, indicating no change over the same period of last year.
