While the overall unemployment rate for the active population of Iran, aged 15 and above, was reported at 7.8 percent during the past winter, around 795,000 university graduates remain unemployed.
The latest report by the Iranian regime’s Statistical Center on employment in winter 2025 indicates that the unemployment rate among higher education graduates reached 10.7 percent. Although this figure reflects a 0.9 percent decrease compared to the same period last year, it still exceeds the national average unemployment rate.
Although the general unemployment rate for the active population aged 15 and above stood at 7.8 percent during the past winter, approximately 795,000 university graduates were still unemployed. Women and residents of rural areas make up a larger share of this statistic. Additionally, 38.9 percent of the total unemployed population during this period held university degrees.
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Although those with higher education account for 27.3 percent of the total employed population, this proportion has decreased by 0.5 percent compared to the previous year. This comes despite the Iranian regime’s 2024 promise—through the Supreme Employment Council and the creation of a “National Committee for Graduate Employment”—to allocate 25 percent of new job opportunities to university graduates.
With the end of the 13th administration last year, the fate of this resolution and the extent of its actual implementation remain unclear. The key question now is what concrete plans the Ministry of Labor under the new government has to address unemployment among university graduates, and to what extent it will focus on resolving this structural crisis in Iran’s labor market.
