For years, Iranian youth have been struggling with the problem of unemployment, which has affected their overall destiny and life. A young person who has studied with a thousand difficulties and after completing mandatory service, when they go to look for a job, they are faced with closed doors and spend years wandering without finding a job, leading to despair and disappointment, and sometimes even bitter fates.

Youth unemployment in the Islamic Republic of Iran is a bitter and shocking tale that has been ongoing for nearly half a century and continues to be a constant and concerning issue in the country. Over the past four decades, the country of 80 million people has been faced with a large army of unemployed youth, and this number continues to grow every year. The main reasons for this severe and widespread problem in Iran are the underdevelopment of the country and the lack of proper and systematic plans to create employment opportunities.

Unfortunately, the flawed and incompetent management and the unique situation in the country, along with the inefficiency of officials and their lack of expertise and dedication to creating employment and advancing the country in a land with abundant potential and significant natural resources, has led the country to face a major crisis in terms of unemployment; to the point where young people have become hopeless and frustrated in their pursuit of even simple jobs and professions.

In pursuit of solving the problem of unemployment among the youth in the country, including university graduates, they are forced to leave the country in order to find a job and livelihood to support themselves and their families. They either resort to temporary and low-paying jobs or leave the country altogether, without being able to establish a stable life or have enough income to get married and start a family.

The lack of jobs and employment opportunities for young people, along with the increasing inflation and high cost of living in Iranian society, has led to a sense of despair, hopelessness, and frustration among the youth who are trapped in the cycle of unemployment and poverty. This vast human resource, which is idle and wasted, struggles through difficult times, causing the economic and social order of the country to weaken and falter. As a result, the country continues to fall behind and loses its essential resources, while heading towards further impoverishment at an alarming rate. Meanwhile, the problem of unemployment and frustration among young people has grave and dangerous consequences for them and society as a whole, leading to the spread of problems and abnormalities and causing the society to become increasingly entangled in new challenges.

Nowadays, in the country of eighty million people under the rule of the Islamic Republic of Iran, a large army of unemployed and job-seeking youth has formed, who have neither a glimpse of hope for their future nor can imagine anything other than a great void of effort behind them, in terms of their future lives.

Hopelessness and emptiness, which have been widespread and all-encompassing for forty years, have become a symbol of the youth’s spirit and soul, making their lives bitter, difficult, and seemingly impossible. This great problem is nothing but the fact that the country’s economy has been sick and led to a dangerous path for years, resulting in unprecedented and continuous anarchy and chaos. This has turned all the hopes of the youth into agonizing despair in finding even low-level jobs, leading to a wave of unemployment, failure, and hopelessness among them, and the cutting off of their lives. Unfortunately, every passing year adds to the chaos and destruction in all aspects of the country, and as a result, the number of unemployed youth increases year after year.

Young people seeking jobs in these years have learned from experience that they will not find work, and if by some miracle they do, they will face numerous other problems such as low pay or even no pay, lack of protective and supportive labor laws, job insecurity, and more. These are problems that will never leave them alone.

The major problem of unemployment exists in this country, and has left the youth facing a cycle of unemployment and aimlessness from one generation to the next. It can be said that today, more than ninety percent of jobs are only available as labor work, with low wages and difficult access. Meanwhile, laborers are forced to work in harsh and exhausting conditions, with very low wages and job insecurity under contractors who have taken on the role of intermediaries for government agencies and labor centers. They must accept all conditions outside of norms and laws from these contractors, as if they do not, they will immediately be fired and left unemployed. Young job seekers are forced to accept these conditions and work for these employers, with half the conditions and without any terms or conditions, and to work for them and not complain, as the famous saying goes.

In a brief review, it is evident that the Islamic Republic has no short-term or long-term plans to create jobs in society, and officials do not pay attention to such an important issue in society.

Lack of establishment of job centers over the years in the country and unfortunately the destruction of many job centers in the country has made finding work, even low-level jobs, very difficult and almost impossible. This is while for the few jobs that exist in the country, the local and educated workforce is not utilized and instead priority is given to the families of martyrs, prisoners of war, disabled veterans, etc. and the majority of young people are left waiting for years without any opportunities being opened for them.

Difficult and frustrating selections that are placed in front of young people during job applications are considered as another obstacle to youth employment; while in general, the equation of supply and demand for jobs in the country is not calculable and hopeful. Therefore, young people are forced to turn to seasonal or fake jobs, and if they do not engage in illegal, immoral, and harmful jobs, they usually resort to temporary jobs such as street vending and daily labor, which also puts them at risk of facing hostile treatment from municipal officials and their small capital is at risk.

The main problem, bigger than unemployment and lack of job opportunities for young people, is the increasing inflation and economic crises and the imbalance between income and expenses, which constantly exist in the country. The youth, who nowadays miraculously manage to find a job and benefit from government privileges, do not receive a salary that can meet their needs for starting a family. This is because with a simple calculation, they can see that even if they save all their salary and do not spend a single rial, it will take them more than a hundred years to be able to afford a small apartment with one bedroom in one of the lower neighborhoods of the city. And this calculation is based on the assumption that prices will not continue to rise, while in reality they will increase multiple times. This is because inflation is shockingly high in the country and the constant rise in prices has made everyone tired and hopeless in life.

Evidence shows that officials have no written and studied economic and social plans to address these crises, including the issue of unemployment, which has become a major and ongoing problem in the country.

The statistics announced regarding unemployment in the country, which have been reported up to 65% in some provinces, are far from reality. If accurate and proper statistics are prepared and reported in this area, the unemployment rate in the Islamic Republic will surprise everyone.

In the past four decades, young people seeking employment in Iran have seen their hopes for job opportunities diminish. Generally, their hopes for a good life have also declined, leading to many abnormalities for the youth and setbacks for society in all areas.

Such difficult and unpleasant conditions have made life hard and even impossible for young people; because of the flawed management of society at a macro level, especially in relation to the country’s economy and the lack of development and low economic growth rate that has been ongoing and continues, all hopes for employment in Iran have been lost and day by day, this destruction and despair of the youth is increasing.

Over the past four decades, between 700,000 to 800,000 young workers, including university graduates, have entered the job market in Iran annually. However, not only has the smallest new job opportunity not been created in the country during this time, but many job opportunities and employment centers related to previous generations, such as small and large factories and industries, have also lost their workforce and have been excluded from the cycle of work and production.

Unfortunately, due to the lack of competent and dedicated officials and managers in the country, the number of unemployed people increases every year and the country is facing a major crisis in this regard. This is while government agencies are saturated with workforce and in many job centers, workforce adjustment is being carried out on a widespread and permanent basis. Every year, a considerable number of employed people also lose their jobs and add to the already high number of unemployed people in the country.

In a general overview of this terrible phenomenon, what is more concerning than ever is the consequences of unemployment; because from the perspective of experts, unemployment is considered as the mother of social corruption in societies.

It is obvious that in a society where young people are facing widespread and long-term challenges in finding employment and are unable to secure a job that can provide for their livelihood and support their family in special circumstances, they will unconsciously be drawn towards deviant behaviors; in addition, they will be exposed to the dangers of unemployment. For this reason, the great wealth of human resources in society will also give rise to one deviant behavior after another, shaping society and gradually leading it towards decline and decadence.

It can confidently be said that the biggest problem in current Iranian society, in addition to many other issues that exist in Iran, is the problem of despair and hopelessness, which has cast a shadow over the entire society and especially the young generation seeking employment. This despair, which has become the creator of humiliation and self-sacrifice among the youth, has affected their entire future.

As the statistics of marriage have significantly decreased in the country nowadays and the age of marriage has risen greatly, divorce and the struggles of families and the resulting hardships on the children and their parents have caused much contemplation and concern.

The increasing trend of false jobs, the prevalence of addiction among youth, and the rise in theft in society are abnormalities that have shaken the pillars of life in Iranian society and have caused many problems to collapse. Each of these problems is in itself the cause of many other problems that are uncountable.