Analysis by PMOI/MEK
Iran, November 27, 2020—While the Iranian society is overwhelmed with disastrous economic conditions as a result of the regime’s mismanagement and corruption, government statistics pertain unemployment rate has decreased by 1.1 percent since last year. How can this be possible while many businesses have stopped operating due to the coronavirus crisis?
The regime is playing with statistics. When those seeking jobs fail to find one or become discouraged from finding appropriate work, the regime reduces them from the unemployed population. Hereby, the government of regime President Hassan Rouhani cheats and plays a deceptive game with statistics.
In this regard, some of the state-run media exposed the government’s false statistics.
“The reduction of the unemployment rate is because of a decline in participation rates and this cannot show an improvement in the labor market. In fact, in such circumstances, the unemployment rate is a complete misleading indicator to analyze the labor market,” wrote the state-run Eghtesad News website on November 22.
“During the summer of 2020, about 1.6 million have left the labor market. More than 1.01 million of them were women and 616,000 were men. These demographic changes, in turn, have reduced the rate of economic participation compared to the same quarter last year,” wrote the daily Sharq.
Inactive population increases as unemployment rates decrease
“The evaluation of the results of the summer 2020 labor population shows that the employed population has decreased by about 1.2 million and the unemployed population has decreased by 417,000, while the inactive population has increased by 2.311 million,” wrote Eghtesad Online on October 28.
However, the decline in the working population was not the same in all sectors. The working population reduced by 819,000 in the service sector, 347,000 in agriculture, and 432,000 in the industrial sector. Also, during the summer, the working population of the agriculture sector reduced by 7.4 percent, and the population of industry and services sectors respectively reduced by 5% and 6.7%.
Also, the daily Donyaye Eghtesad wrote on October 28, “Statistical studies show that 73.2% of the total unemployed population in the country in the summer of 2020 were in the 18-35-year age group. If we take into account the under-18 population, 74.2% of the total unemployed were under 35 years and 25% of them were over 35 years old.”
Playing with the figures
In its spring report, the Parliamentary Research Center revealed a smart part of the reality of Iran’s economy. A significant part of young people who sought a job until last year, have abandoned their efforts due after failing many times. Many youths have lost their hope in finding a job. But in its reports, the government presents this bitter reality as a drop in the rate of unemployment.
According to the Research Center report, more than 58% of the working-age population in Iran do not seek employment at all. Also, the economic participation rate during the 2020 summer has decreased by 3.2 percent compared to the summer of 2019. Therefore, in every aspect and calculation, the unemployment rate in Iran is much higher than what the mullahs’ regime is trying to hide.
However, even those who are employed have low wages, salaries that are not proportionate to the skyrocketing prices of basic goods.
Despite controlling billions of dollars in assets and wealth, the regime has failed to save Iran’s economy and has chosen to spend the country’s capital on internal repression and financing its proxy groups in the region to maintain its regime. The squandering of the country’s wealth has resulted in uncontrollable inflation, rising prices, and a broken economy that have exhausted the Iranian society and made an already difficult situation worse for the low-income, unemployed and impoverished families.
