A total of 783,000 people have filed for unemployment benefits since March 13, of whom 654,000 were found eligible, says an official with the Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare.
“The total number of individuals receiving unemployment benefits last year was 260,000,” Masoud Babaie was also quoted as saying by Mehr News Agency.
Hojjat Mirzaie, an official with the Cooperatives Ministry, said earlier that most of those who have filed for unemployment were employed in the services sector.
Ali Rabiei, the government spokesman, has said the economy could lose up to four million jobs as a result of the new coronavirus.
“More than 12 million workers are employed in the services sector. The early impacts of unemployment can be seen in 10 business groups that were closed as soon as the virus was confirmed. Close to 3.3 million of the employed population in the official economy are directly affected by the crisis,” he was quoted as saying by the Persian-language daily Etemad.
Of those who have filed for unemployment insurance, 149,000 hail from Tehran Province, according to Anushiravan Mohseni-Bandpay, the provincial governor of Tehran.
Tehran Province, wherein lies the capital city, registered an 8.8% unemployment rate in the fourth quarter of the current Iranian year (Dec. 22, 2019-March 19). The province’s employment rate stood at 38% and its labor force participation rate was 41.7% in winter, according to the latest data provided by the Statistical center of Iran.
Q4 Unemployment at 10.6%
Iran’s overall unemployment rate, the proportion of jobless population of ages 15 and above, stood at 10.6% in the fourth quarter of the current Iranian year (Dec. 22, 2019-March 19), indicating a 1.7% decline compared with the same period of last year.
These numbers were calculated between Feb. 1 and Feb 14, before the outbreak of coronavirus, when the labor market was in better shape, the latest SCI report said.
A total of 2,788,587 Iranians were unemployed in Q4. Men’s unemployment stood at 9.2% while the rate for women hovered around 17.2%. Over 1.97 million men and 812,902 women of ages 15 and above were jobless in Q4.
The unemployment rate was 11.4% for urban areas (2.23 million people) and 8.5% for rural areas (554,330 people).
SCI has 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 42.4% or 26.22 million people, registering a 1.1% decrease year-on-year.
Men’s and women’s economic participation rates were 69.4% and 15.3% respectively in the same period.
SCI reports that 21.49 million men and 4.73 million women of ages 15 and above were economically active in Q4, i.e., they were either employed or looking for job.
The total Q4 employment rate was 37.8% (23.43 million), down 0.4% compared with the same quarter of last Iranian year. Employment rates for men and women were 63% and 12.7%, respectively, which constituted 19.51 million men and 3.92 million women in Q4.
The employment rate was 36.9% or 17.44 million in urban areas and 40.8% or 5.98 million in rural areas.
The services sector employed 52.7% of the Iranian employed population (12.34 million), 1% more than the corresponding period of last year, whereas industrial and agricultural sectors provided 31.7% and 15.6% of jobs respectively.
Over 7.42 million were employed in the industrial sector, indicating a decrease of 0.6% compared with the year before and 3.65 million worked in agriculture, posting a 0.4% decline YOY.
The services sector consists of wholesale and retail trade; restaurants and hotels; transport, storage and communications; financing, insurance, real estate and business services; as well as community, social, education, health and personal services.
The services sector employed 10.08 million men and 2.26 million women in the three-month period; over 6.39 million men and 1.03 million women were working in the industrial sector and 3.03 million men and 619,677 women worked in the agriculture sector in Q4.
Services sector accounted for 61.7% or 10.75 million of all jobs in urban areas and 26.5% or 1.58 million of jobs in rural areas.
The industrial sector made up 33.1% or 5.78 million of the jobs in urban areas and comprised 27.5% or 1.64 million of employment in rural areas. This is while 5.2% or 904,420 of the total jobs in urban areas and 45.9% or 2.75 million of the jobs in rural areas were in the agriculture sector.
Allocation to Unemployment Insurance Fund
In early April, Babaie said the government would allocate 50,000 billion rials ($308 million) to Unemployment Insurance Fund to support those who have lost their jobs amid the outbreak of coronavirus.
“To prevent the spread of the virus, applicants are urged to fill out online forms for unemployment benefits at the newly-designed website 'bimebikari.mcls.gov.ir' within 30 days, rather than going personally to the ministry’s bureaus,” he was quoted as saying by IRNA.
“As per a joint guideline signed by the Cooperatives Ministry and the Social Security Organization on March 30, workers of 10 job groups and economic subsectors that have been hit by coronavirus outbreak and are subject to the provisions of the Islamic Republic of Iran Labor Law, the Social Security Act and the Unemployment Insurance Law will qualify to receive unemployment benefits for three months.”
The official noted that other insurers, such as those covering the self-employed, construction workers and carpet weavers, were not eligible for unemployment benefits.
Earlier, the Central Bank of Iran released a list of businesses directly affected by the outbreak of the coronavirus disease, COVID-19. These businesses can apply to receive bank support and facilities.
The list includes food preparation and distribution centers, including restaurants, buffets, teahouses and other such centers; tourism centers, including hotels, inns, hostels, road recreation and service providing centers and other such businesses identified by the Ministry of Industries, Mining and Trade; air, rail and road transportation companies whether inter- or intra-city; travel agencies; apparel production and distribution units; bag and footwear production and distribution units; distributors of nuts and dried fruit, confectioneries, ice cream and juice outlets; sport and recreational centers; cultural and educational centers; and handicraft production and distribution centers, ILNA reported.
