Contradictions Mark NEET Unemployment 

Contradictory statistics on youth employment have been published by official sources recently. 
The Statistical Center of Iran put the percentage of young people between the ages of 15 and 24 who are neither in employment, education, nor training (NEET, for short) at 29.4%, but according to figures published by the Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare, their share stands at 77.4%. 
NEET statistics are especially important because they show a clear picture of the future trend. Young people are the most valuable assets of all societies; a country whose young people are idle, neither receive education nor learn a skill or get engaged in healthy economic activity, cannot have a future. 
This was stated by Nasser Zakeri, an economist, in a write-up for the Persian daily Shargh. A translation of the text follows: