“This year, 1.2 million unemployed job-seekers entered the labor market, but the country in its current state cannot handle this many applicants,” said President Rouhani while addressing the conference on National Day of Village and Nomads held on Saturday in Tehran.
“Over the past three years, the government has done its utmost for development of villages but there is still a lot to do to reach the desired point,” he said, adding “protecting villages and their cultural assets, as well as supporting production in villages and preventing emigration should be of serious concern to all authorities.”
Rouhani further noted that unemployment rate is higher among women than men, and called for more concentrated efforts to tackle this problem.
“We should move towards industrial agriculture and development of small and medium industries,” Rouhani said. “Village culture is characterized by honesty, courage, bravery and patriotism.”
“The Headquarters of Resistance Economy has requested the Leader of Islamic Revolution to allocate $1.5 billion for development and prosperity of different sectors in villages,” said President Rouhani, vowing that the allocated budget would be a major step toward addressing the unemployment issue of villagers.
Elsewhere, Rouhani mentioned his cabinet reshuffle which saw the resignation of ministers of culture, sports and education, and called for an end to ‘childish quarrels’ in the country. Rouhani further called on media outlets to stay clear of spreading lies and accusations, as well as creating unnecessary conflicts, divisions and factions.
The President maintained that changing of ministers was for ‘stability’ of the government, and criticized certain ‘cranky’ newspapers that would complain about the government for not changing and then changing its ministers; “for development and prosperity of the country, sometimes the government needs constancy and sometimes needs to change managers,” he said.
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