'Iran's unemployment rate 11.5%'
Unemployed Iranian workers in the capital Tehran (file photo)
Iran's unemployment rate was 11.5 percent in the first quarter of the current Iranian year (started March 21), the Iranian labor minister has said.
“Based on the announcement of the Statistics Center of Iran (SCI), the unemployment rate was 11.5 percent in the first three months of the year,” Iran's Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Abdolreza Sheikholeslami said on Wednesday without further explanation, IRIB reported.
The minister expressed hope that the Iranian government would achieve its objectives in the job market through cooperation of all relevant organizations.
Earlier this year, Sheikholeslami said that Iran plans to cut its unemployment rate to seven percent by the end of 2012 in line with the Fifth Socio-Economic Development Plan of Iran (2010-2015).
“Some 1.5 million new jobs have been created,” said Sheikholeslami on February 12 without elaborating on specific details.
Iran's Fifth Five-Year Economic Development Plan is part of the 20-Year Outlook Plan (2005-2025), which is the country's main blueprint for long-term sustainable growth.
The fifth five-year plan has stipulated for the reduction of the unemployment rate to seven percent in 2015 through creating an average of 990,000 jobs annually.
DB/MMA/HRF
