“Resources needed for financing home-based businesses have declined drastically from 8,000 billion rials [$61.53 million] in the years ending March 2018-19 to 2,000 billion rials [$15.38 million] this year due to a decline in government revenues,” she was quoted as saying by Fars News Agency.
From March 2016-19, a total of 218,000 work permits have been issued for home-based businesses and 113,000 people have taken out loans, 82% of whom were housewives.
"Carpet weaving and rug making, clothing, IT, e-businesses and livestock farming [in rural areas] are the most popular home-based businesses," Financial Tribune quoted her as saying.
One of the main objectives of the government for the next Iranian year (to start March 20, 2020) is improving domestic production and employment. As one of the appendices to the budget bill suggests, the Iranian government is planning to create close to one million jobs by shoring up main sectors that drive economic growth.
To finance job-creation projects, 535.48 trillion rials ($4 billion) will be allocated from three main sources, namely banks’ resources, the country's sovereign wealth fund, i.e. the National Development Fund of Iran, and the government’s general budget.
Iran’s unemployment rate, the proportion of jobless population of ages 10 years and above, stood at 12% in the last Iranian year (March 2018-19), indicating a 0.1% rise compared with the year before (March 2017-18).
A total of 3,260,796 Iranians were unemployed last year, according to the Statistical Center of Iran.
The unemployment rate for men stood at 10.4% while women’s joblessness hovered around 18.9%.
Over 2.25 million men and 1.01 million women of ages 10 and above were jobless last year.
The unemployment rate was 13.5% for urban areas (2.7 million people) and 7.9% for rural areas (553,883 people).
SCI has put last year’s labor force participation rate—the proportion of the population of ages 10 years and above that is economically active either employed or looking for work—at 40.5% or 27.07 million people, registering a 0.4% rise year-on-year.
Men’s and women’s economic participation rates were 64.8% and 16.1% respectively last year.
According to SCI, 21.71 million of men and 5.35 million of women ages 10 and above were economically active last year, that is they were either employed or looking for job.