FY 2022-23 Employment Rate Reaches 37.2%

The total employment rate reached 37.2% (23.71 million) in the fiscal 2022-23 (ended March 20), unchanged compared with the year before, according to the Statistical Center of Iran.
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.
Employment rates for men and women were reported at 63% and 11.4%, respectively, i.e., 20.06 million men and 3.65 million women. It was put at 36.4% (17.94 million people) in urban areas and 39.9% (5.77 million) in rural areas. 
The share of employment of university graduates stood at 26.7% of the total employed population, wherein male and female graduate employment rates were 23% and 47.5%, respectively. In urban and rural areas, graduate employment rates stood at 32.5% and 8.8% of the total number of job-holders, respectively. 
Last year’s statistics show that 38% of the country’s labor force worked more than 49 hours per week, indicating a 0.2% increase compared with the year before.
The services sector employed 51.6% of the Iranian employed population (12.23 million), 1.8% higher than the year before, whereas industrial and agricultural sectors provided 33.6% and 14.8% of jobs respectively. 
Over 7.96 million were employed in the industrial sector, down 0.2%, and 3.51 million worked in agriculture, posting a 1.5% decrease compared with the year before. 
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 sector employed 10.05 million men and 2.17 million women in the year, such that 6.99 million men and 969,893 women were working in the industrial sector and 3 million men and 503,999 women worked in the agriculture sector. 
Services accounted for 34.7% or 6.22 million of all jobs in urban areas and 30.1% or 1.73 million of jobs in rural areas. The industrial sector made up 5.8% or 1.04 million of the jobs in urban areas and comprised 42.8% or 2.47 million of employment in rural areas. 
This is while 12.5% or 830,155 of the total jobs in urban areas and 17.6% or 108,305 of the jobs in rural areas were in the agriculture sector. 
Zanjan Province registered the highest employment rate of 45.7% while Ilam filed the lowest employment rate of 30.2% among all Iranian provinces. Tehran’s employment rate stood at 37.4%.