Rural communities accounted for 25% of all new jobs created in Iran in the last fiscal year (March 2018-19).
According to Deputy Minister of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare Isa Mansouri, the government allocated 73 trillion rials (about $510 million) to generate employment in rural areas last year for creating 188,000 new jobs.
However, according to the Statistical Center of Iran, a total of 141,000 new jobs were created in rural areas last year, Mehr News Agency quoted him as saying.
Last year, the Iranian Parliament allowed the government to funnel $1.5 billion from the National Development Fund of Iran, the sovereign wealth fund of the country, as loans with payback period of up to six years for creating jobs and improving production in rural and nomadic areas with a population of up to 10,000.
The findings of the National Population and Housing Census for the fiscal 2016-17 show that out of 79,926,270 Iranians or 24,196,035 households, 59,146,847 people or 18,125,488 households live in urban and 20,730,625 people or 6,070,547 households live in rural areas.
The urban population saw an increase of 5,500,186 and the rural population witnessed a decrease of 772,383 compared with the figures of the previous national census conducted in 2011-12.
Iran's unemployment rate for rural areas stood at 7.9% (553,883 people) in fiscal 2019-20 against 13.5% for urban areas (2.7 million people), the Statistical Center of Iran reported.
Underemployment, the condition in which people are employed for less than 44 hours of service per week, stood at 14.6% in rural areas against 9.4% in urban areas.
Graduate unemployment in rural areas was at 23.9% in rural areas against 41.4% in urban areas.
Employment rate—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–was 34.4% or 17.38 million in urban areas and 39.2% or 6.43 million in rural areas.
Graduate employment rates in urban and rural areas stood at 30% and 7.2% of the total population of job-holders.
Services sector accounted for 59.9% or 10.4 million of all jobs in urban areas and 24.3% or 1.56 million of the jobs in rural areas. Industrial sector made up 34% or 5.9 million of the jobs in urban areas and 26.6% or 1.71 million of the employment in rural areas whereas 6.1% or 1.05 million of the total jobs in urban areas and 49.1% or 3.15 million of the jobs in rural areas were in agriculture sector.
Overall, Iran’s unemployment rate, the proportion of jobless population of ages 10 years and above, stood at 12% in the last Iranian year (March 2018-19), indicating a 0.1% rise compared with the year before (March 2017-18).
According to SCI, a total of 3,260,796 Iranians were unemployed last year.
The unemployment rate for men stood at 10.4% while women joblessness hovered around 18.9%.
Over 2.25 million men and 1.01 million women of ages 10 and above were jobless last year.
