Head of Statistics Center: Unemployment in Iran Has Reached a 'Crisis Point'

The head of Iran's Statistics Center states that due to the youth unemployment rate being double that of the overall unemployment rate, Iran has reached a 'crisis point' in unemployment. Adel Azar, in an interview with the Iranian Labor News Agency (ILNA) on Friday, January 26, emphasized: 'Standards indicate that whenever the youth unemployment rate is at least twice the overall unemployment rate, you have reached a crisis point. We are currently in such a situation.' According to Mr. Azar, statistics show that the unemployment rate for youth aged 15 to 20 in Iran is 21% and the overall unemployment rate is 10.5%. The Statistics Center of Iran in its latest report announced that the unemployment rate among 15 to 24-year-olds in the country in the autumn season is 25.7%, and the unemployment rate among 15 to 29-year-olds is 21.8%. The head of the Statistics Center also mentioned 'one hour of work per week,' 'eight hours of work per week,' and 'sixteen hours of work per week' as three indicators for calculating employed individuals worldwide. He also stated that the government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the former president of Iran, reduced the standard definition of employed individuals from 16 hours of work per week to at least one hour of work per week for 'accountability to international organizations.' The Statistics Center defines employed individuals as 'all individuals aged ten or older who worked at least one hour during the week of the survey or temporarily left work for any reason.' This type of definition and data collection has been in place since the beginning of Ahmadinejad's government and continues to this day, while previously, anyone who worked at least two days a week was considered employed. The head of the Statistics Center also mentioned that if the basis for calculating employed individuals were increased from a minimum of one hour of work per week to a minimum of eight hours, the unemployment rate in Iran would not change, but if it were increased to 16 hours of work per week, the unemployment rate in Iran would increase by one percent, indicating that the current unemployment rate based on 16 hours of work per week is 11.5%. According to Mr. Azar, the unemployment rate for individuals with a bachelor's degree is currently higher than for those with a diploma or less, whereas in the past, the 'unemployed class' was in the sub-diploma educational group. Ali Rabiei, the Minister of Labor, and Ali Tayebnia, the Minister of Economy, had previously warned about the entry of four and a half million university graduates into the job market in the near future. Reports indicate that despite the Iranian job market still struggling to solve the unemployment problem of those born in the 1980s, those born in the 1990s are also entering the job market, with some of them being job seekers. In this regard, Iran needs to create '800,000' new jobs annually.