460 Economists and Social Activists: The Government Should Halt the Internship Program

More than 460 economists and social activists have issued a statement criticizing the government's internship program under Hassan Rouhani, calling for its immediate cancellation. According to Mehr News Agency, the statement also requested that similar programs like 'Workplace Skill Training' be canceled by the government. The Rouhani administration launched the internship program on July 1, with the stated goal of 'reducing unemployment rates and creating widespread employment.' Under this program, university graduates are to work as interns in production and service companies without any commitment from employers to hire them. The internship program faced criticism from labor and professional organizations prior to its implementation. Nevertheless, Rouhani's officials have defended the program and emphasized its execution. For instance, Aladdin Azvaji, the Director General of Labor Market Policy and Employment Development at the Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor, and Social Welfare, defended the internship program, stating that its goal is to 'transfer skills to create new entrepreneurs.' He mentioned that the program aims to employ 150,000 graduates annually and that the government provides each intern with a stipend of 200,000 to 300,000 tomans for 4 to 6 months, covering employers' civil liability insurance costs as well. In response to widespread criticism from labor organizations, he stated that employers should be 'appreciated' for supporting this program. According to Mehr, the 460 economists and social activists in their statement claimed that the purpose of the internship program is to 'provide very cheap and unstable labor for both domestic and foreign investors,' adding that 'its consequence will be increased job insecurity and further weakening of living standards for the lower classes.' The signatories of this statement argued that the internship program 'makes working conditions fragile and unstable for workers, allowing employers to easily dismiss temporary workers with unstable contracts and unclear insurance status, replacing them with low-cost interns.' The statement highlighted that according to Article 10 of the internship program, 'the employer has no obligation to temporarily or permanently hire the intern, and the intern has no rights under labor and social security laws.' Another point criticized by the signatories is the wage set for interns. They noted that the intern's wage is capped at one-third of the country's minimum wage for four to eight hours of work per day, with half of it paid by the government. Based on the Supreme Labor Council's resolution, the monthly minimum wage for workers is about 930,000 tomans, meaning the intern's wage would be 310,000 tomans per month. The statement also mentioned the insurance for interns, stating that 'while according to labor law, a person must be covered by social security insurance as soon as they enter the workplace, the government has exempted employers from insuring interns, making only civil liability insurance mandatory, the premium for which is not the employer's responsibility but falls on the government.' The signatories believe that 'the government's substantial debt to the Social Security Organization prevents it from fulfilling this obligation properly.' They warned of the 'disastrous' social consequences of the internship program and similar initiatives, adding that 'employing university graduates for four to six months - with no guarantee of employment - and then replacing them with several other graduates only reduces temporary unemployment statistics.' Among the signatories are Youssef Ali Abazari, Mohammad Maljou, Fariborz Ryesdana, Morad Farhadpour, Parviz Sadaqat, Frida Afari, and Nasser Zarafshan. Other signatories include Ehsan Shariati, Nasrin Sotoudeh, Akbar Masoumi Beigi, Reza Shahabi, Jafar Azimzadeh, Mahmoud Beheshti Langaroudi, Davood Razavi, Parvin Mohammadi, Mohammad Jaraahi, and Mohammad Aghazadeh.