The demand for jobs in the next few years will reach five million and 800,000 new jobs should be created annually to cut the dole queues, says Labor Minister Ali Rabiei.
“As per our estimates, in the coming years 5 million people will enter the labor market. Most of the applicants will be educated people with a university degree and the rate of women’s unemployment will be higher than that of men,” he said quoted by Mehr News Agency.
According to official figures, last year (ended March 20), 400,000 new jobs were created to meet half the demand for employment.
Although more than 700,000 job opportunities were available last year, over 300,000 became obsolete; therefore policy measures should lead to stability in the existing jobs along with the creation of new employment, he said.
Statistics show that at present, one job becomes defunct for every two created.
Currently, 4.5 million are studying in universities and many of them will seek placements within a year or two, Rabiei said.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) says that in 2016, with the removal of western sanctions following the mid-July nuclear accord with the world’s major powers, Iran will likely see 4.5 to 5% economic growth. But in the current year (2015) the economic growth rate will be zero.
Economic experts say for every one percent of economic growth, 100,000 new jobs can be created in the country; but this year, no new jobs will be generated.
According to the IMF’s latest report, Iran’s unemployment rate increased to 11.6% in 2015 from the previous year’s rate of 10.6% and is expected to reach 12.2% in 2016.
Lack of adequate opportunities has also impacted existing job security. Many work contracts have been reduced to only one month!
The unemployment crisis is not peculiar to Iran and has affected many other countries. According to IMF data, in 2015 youth unemployment was 27.25%, 27%, 26.7%, 25.8% and 21.8% in Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece, South Africa and Spain respectively. The five countries have the highest rates of youth unemployment in the world.
Serbia, Armenia, Albania, Croatia, Cyprus, Jamaica, Tunisia, Venezuela, Sao Tome and Principe, Bahamas, Egypt, Portugal, Barbados and Slovak Republic are other countries with higher unemployment rates than Iran.
Unemployed people are defined as those who report that they are without work, that they are available for work and have taken active steps to find work in the last four weeks.
