Parliamentary Think Tank Puts Q2 Unemployment Rate at 18.5%

The economically active population, including employed and unemployed people, reduced by 1.62 million in the second quarter of the current fiscal year (June 21-Sept. 21), indicating a 3.1% decline in labor force participation rate compared with the corresponding period of last year. 
According to a report by Majlis Research Center, the research arm of the Iranian Parliament, 22.3% of the unemployed and 8.9% of employed persons were added to the population of economically inactive in Q2. Had they joined the population of people looking for job, the unemployment rate of the period under review would have been 18.5% rather than the official 9.5% announced by the Statistical Center of Iran. 
The MRC report noted that of the more than 1.62 million people in the active population that dropped out of the labor market in Q2, 1.01 million were women and 615,651 were men. The second quarter’s economic participation rate fell by 3.1% year-on-year to reach 41.8%.