Iran’s youth unemployment rates according to economic website
Washington, 15 August (IranVNC) — According to the website Sarmayeh [The Capital], Iran’s overall unemployment rate is 9.6 percent, but this number is double among the young population.
By: IranVNC
Published: Friday, August 15, 2008
IRAN – UNEMPLOYMENT – SANCTIONS
12:00GMT – 8:00AM/EST
Washington, 15 August (IranVNC) — According to the website Sarmayeh [The Capital], Iran’s overall unemployment rate is 9.6 percent, but this number is double among the young population.
Sarmayeh website quotes Alireza Zahediyan, deputy for statistical planning at Iran’s Statistics Center, as saying: “The unemployment rate relates the overall number of unemployed, but the more discernable unemployment is among the youth, which is double the 9.6 figure and is around 18 percent.”
Some experts consider the actual rate of unemployment to be much higher than this. In relation to this, Sarmayeh quotes Gholam-Ali Farjadi, a job-market expert, as saying: “Considering the 2006 census, the active population numbers around 23 million individuals and the employed, 20.5 million, leaving some 2.5 million unemployed; this amounts to an unemployment rate of around 12.5 percent.”
Experts say that in order to be in pace with the young population and reduce unemployment, 1.6 million new jobs need to be created every year, which is much more than what is possible for Iran’s economy.
According to Sarmayeh, another group of experts consider the reason for unreliability of the given rate of unemployment at 9.6 percent to be the extreme reduction in construction projects in recent years, and think that the positive growth of construction permits issued in the previous two years, is due to the central bank’s tightening policies, its reduction in banking amenities, investments, and the actual execution of the permits issued.
The International Monetary Fund [IMF] has numbered the economic injuries incurred on Iran because of the sanctions imposed on it by the United Nations Security Council, saying: “Intensified international pressures on Iran have negatively affected economic activity.”
In light of this, the IMF recommends: “It is crucial to slow domestic demand growth in order to lower inflation while stepping up structural reforms to increase the economy’s growth potential and employment creation.
The UN Security Council has imposed three rounds of economic sanctions on Iran so far for failing to suspend its uranium enrichment activities, which the West suspect is being used to produce nuclear weapons. Iran denies trying to create a nuclear weapon.
Sources: Sarmayeh website, IMF website
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(Original article written in Persian.)