A total of 840,944 people have filed for unemployment benefits by June 8th, of whom 703,430 were found eligible, says, an official with the Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare.
“The lion’s share of job losses following the outbreak of coronavirus occurred in the month ending March 19 with 372,891; unemployment payments for 241,000 of them started on Sunday,” Masoud Babaie was also quoted as saying by Fars News Agency.
Back in early April, Babaie said the government would allocate 50,000 billion rials ($282.48 million) to Unemployment Insurance Fund to support those who have lost their jobs amid the outbreak of coronavirus.
Noting that the total number of individuals receiving unemployment benefits last year (March 2019-20) was 260,000, he said, “To prevent the spread of the virus, applicants were urged to fill out online forms for unemployment benefits at the newly-designed website 'bimebikari.mcls.gov.ir'.”
The government will offer loans to the tune of 60 million rials ($339) with the lending rate of 12% to those who were forced out of work during the coronavirus lockdowns but were not entitled to unemployment benefits such as self-employed taxi drivers or construction workers,” Deputy Cooperatives Minister Isa Mansouri said.
Following the government’s approval of a 490-trillion-rial bailout ($2.76 billion) out of a total 750 trillion-rial ($4.23 billion) package for low-income households and struggling businesses to help small- and medium-sized economic enterprises impacted by the coronavirus, a total of 1.2 million enterprises that have insurance codes were identified and received text messages from the ministry to register at Kara.mcls.gov.ir for loans.
“The ministry will grant 120 million rials [$677] in loans to employers, provided they retain at least one worker on their payroll. Businesses that were forced to shut down will receive 160 million rials [$903] for each employee. The 24-month repayment period will start as of October,” IRNA quoted him as saying.
Thus far, 228,000 economic enterprises have enrolled at Kara.mcls.gov.ir and 126,000 with a total of 238,000 employees were found eligible for the bailout. Close to 75,000 files were opened in the banks that have outsourced the process. As of June 13, applicants whose files have been sent to banks can refer to branches and receive their loans, he said.
Hojjat Mirzaei, an official with the Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare, said earlier that most of those who have filed for unemployment benefits were employed in the services sector.
Ali Rabiei, 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 businesses 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.
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 latest data provided by the Statistical Center of Iran.
Iran’s unemployment rate, the proportion of jobless population of ages 15 and above, stood at 10.7% in the last Iranian year (March 2019-20), indicating a 1.5% decline compared with the year before, the latest report by SCI shows.
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 44.1%, registering a 0.4% decrease year-on-year.
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 during the reference period or not at work due to a temporary absence from a job, or to working-time arrangement.
Last year’s total employed population was at over 24.27 million, nearly 430,000 more than the year before.
The services sector employed 50.3% of the Iranian employed population last year, whereas industrial and agricultural sectors provided 32% and 17.7% of jobs, respectively.
The center provides two figures for the youth unemployment rate: the proportion of the population between 15 and 24 years and those between 18 and 35 years.
The youth unemployment rate of those between 15 and 24 years stood at 26%, posting a 1.7% decrease while the unemployment rate of those between 18 and 35 years stood at 17.9%, posting a decline of 1.7% YOY.
Underemployment, the condition in which people in a labor force are employed for less than 44 hours of service per week, stood at 9.9% while 38% of the country’s employed population worked more than 49 hours per week.
