Iran's Labor Market in Spring 1405: More Than 450,000 People Lost Their Jobs

According to Ecoiran, in a report published Thursday, August 13, 2026 (22 Mordad 1405), Iran's labor market showed one of its most serious signs of contraction in the year to this spring: more than 450,000 people lost their jobs, while the number of unemployed grew by more than 482,000. All of the job losses, more than 630,000 positions, came from the industrial sector. Iran's population aged 15 and over reached more than 66.67 million this spring, up about 828,000 from the same quarter a year earlier, but 96 percent of that increase moved into the economically inactive population (neither employed nor seeking work). Close to half of the newly unemployed were aged 18 to 35, and more than 83,000 of them were university graduates. More than 443,000 people also joined the underemployed population (working fewer than 44 hours a week), a figure last seen during the Covid pandemic.