Parliamentary Think Tank Puts Q1 Jobless Rate at 24 Percent

The official unemployment rate, according to the Statistical Center of Iran, stood at 9.8% in the first quarter of the current Iranian year (March 20-June 20), indicating a 1.1% decline compared with the same period of last year. 
But the true rate is much higher than the official figure of 24%, when taking into account people who dropped out of the labor force during the period, a report by Majlis Research Center, the research arm of the Iranian Parliament reads.
Given the significant rise in the number of economically inactive people, the unemployment rate is a misleading economic indicator when it comes to analyzing the impact of coronavirus crisis on the labor market. 
Salaried workers make up a small fraction of total employees in Iran. In actuality, self-employed people account for the bigger share of employment.