$75m Deposited in Unemployment Insurance Fund

EghtesadOnline: A total of 12,860 billion rials ($75 million) have been deposited into the Social Security Organization’s Unemployment Insurance Fund, according to the Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare.

News ID: ۷۵۰۰۶۸

18 May 2020

The funding came from the €1 billion coronavirus relief package from the National Development Fund of Iran, Mehr News Agency reported.

“Close to 820,930 people have filed for unemployment since March 13, of whom 687,911 were found eligible for benefits,” Masoud Babaie, an official with the Cooperatives Ministry, said.

"Only those subject to the Labor Law, the Social Security Law and Unemployment Insurance Law will qualify for unemployment benefits," he was quoted as saying by Tasnim News Agency.

“The total number of individuals receiving unemployment benefits last fiscal] year [March 2019-20] was 260,000,” he added.

In April, Babaie said the government would allocate 50,000 billion rials ($290.69 million) to the Unemployment Insurance Fund to support those who have lost their jobs amid the outbreak of coronavirus.

To prevent the spread of the virus, applicants are required to fill out online forms for unemployment benefits at the newly-designed website Bimebikari.mcls.gov.ir, instead of visiting the ministry’s bureaus," he added.

Hojjat Mirzaie, an official with the Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare, said earlier that most of those who have filed for unemployment were employed in the services sector.

Ali Rabiei, the government spokesman, has said the economy could lose up to four million jobs as a result of the new coronavirus.

“More than 12 million workers are employed in the services sector. The early impacts of unemployment can be seen in 10 business groups that were closed, as soon as the virus was confirmed. Close to 3.3 million of the employed population in the official economy are directly affected by the crisis,” he was quoted as saying by the Persian-language daily Etemad.

Tehran Province’s Q4 Job Situation

Tehran Province, wherein lies the capital city, registered an 8.8% unemployment rate in the fourth quarter of the current Iranian year (Dec. 22, 2019-March 19). The province’s employment rate stood at 38% and its labor force participation rate was 41.7% in winter, according to the latest data provided by the Statistical center of Iran.

Iran’s unemployment rate, the proportion of jobless population of ages 15 and above, stood at 10.7% in the last Iranian year, indicating a 1.5% decline compared with the year before.

Labor force participation rate—the proportion of the population of ages 15 and above that is economically active either employed or looking for job—stood at 44.1%, registering a 0.4% decrease year-on-year.

Employment is defined as persons of working age engaged in any activity to produce goods or provide services for pay or profit, whether at work during the reference period or not at work due to a temporary absence from a job, or to working-time arrangement.

Last year’s total employed population was at over 24.27 million, nearly 430,000 more than the year before.

The services sector employed 50.3% of the Iranian employed population last year, whereas industrial and agricultural sectors provided 32% and 17.7% of jobs, respectively.

The center provides two figures for the youth unemployment rate: the proportion of the population between 15 and 24 years and those between 18 and 35 years.

The youth unemployment rate of those between 15 and 24 years stood at 26%, posting a 1.7% decrease while the unemployment rate of those between 18 and 35 years stood at 17.9%, posting a decline of 1.7% YOY.

Underemployment, the condition in which people in a labor force are employed for less than 44 hours of service per week, stood at 9.9% while 38% of the country’s employed population worked more than 49 hours per week.