Call for All-Out Effort to Boost Employment

President Hassan Rouhani has called for an all-out, collective effort to help boost production and employment in line with the objectives of an economic plan aimed at bolstering self-sufficiency.

All government bodies have been instructed to comply with the initiative named Resistance Economy, which has been outlined by the Leader of Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.

“In light of a rapidly growing, job-creating domestic production sector, we would be able to achieve both the goals set by the Leader of Islamic Revolution concerning production and employment,” the president was quoted as saying by IRNA.

Rouhani was referring to the two economic indicators named by Ayatollah Khamenei while designating the current Iranian year that started on March 21 as the “Year of Resistance Economy: Production and Employment”.

The government has committed itself to developing the production sector with a view to tackling high unemployment, which Rouhani said is a “religious, national and revolutionary obligation.”

The president was addressing a meeting of officials and executives at his office on Monday to mark the onset of the new Iranian year.

He said national security and peace are a function of the main economic indicators, including the employment rate.

“Employment is a major economic and social issue that could ensure the security of the country and if people feel that employment is developing on the right track, it would foster hope and calm in the society,” he said.

The latest report by the Statistical Center of Iran put the unemployment rate in the last fiscal year (March 2016-17) at 12.4%, registering a 1.4% rise compared with a year earlier. Rouhani’s conservative opponents have repeatedly criticized his government’s economic record.