Official unemployment rate drops to single digits.

The unemployment rate has dropped into single digits, the government reported last week. The rate for the summer quarter was 9.5 percent, down from 10.7 percent in the spring quarter, the Statistical Center of Iran (SCI) announced.

The announcement was surprising because the labor minister announced just a month ago that he expected the unemployment rate to soar over the next seven years because the government cannot create enough jobs to keep up with all those leaving school.

And the new SCI report showed the unemployment rate for youth, those aged 16 through 24, remained extremely high at 22.9 percent.

Few believe that the official numbers reflect the actual level of unemployment, which many economists say is actually double or even triple the official statistics. However, it is generally believed that the official statistics do show the direction of movement correctly and that unemployment is therefore dropping.

The official report said that 47 percent of the employed are now in the industrial sector, 34 percent in the service sector and just 19 percent still in agriculture.

The official statistics show the economy shrank 1.9 percent in the last Persian year but rose 4.6 percent at an annual rate in the spring quarter of this Persian year, which might account for more employment. The growth figures for the second quarter, which ended September 22, have not yet been published.

But the new unemployment figures do not gibe with what Labor Minister Ali Rabii said last month.

Rabii said the labor force now totals 24.5 million Iranians, of whom 2.5 million or 10.2 percent are unemployed. Seven years from now, in 2021, the labor force is expected to total a whopping 42.5 million people, he said, with probably 7.5 million of them, or 17.6 percent unemployed.

He said the country cannot create jobs fast enough to employ all those who will finish their education in the next seven years and enter the labor force.