The Latest from Iran (16 January): Economic Jitters

Ashgar Farhadi's Nader and Simin: A Separation wins Best Foreign Film at the Golden Globe Awards last night --- in his acceptance speech, Farhadi says simply, "Iran is truly a loving people"

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2103 GMT: All-Is-Well Alert. Mohsen Qamsari, the head of international affairs at the National Iranian Oil Company, has insisted that Iran is maintaining the sale of oil to Asian countries despite US pressure for tightened sanctions.

Qamsari said, "The one-year contract with Korean companies to buy our oil has been renewed since the last two months."

Earlier this month, officials said refiners in South Korea --- which buys about 10% of its crude from Iran --- were looking for alternatives.

Asked whether Japan had reduced its oil imports from Iran, Qamsari said, "It is not true. The time for renewal of contracts with the Japanese is around March and they are buying 240,000 barrels from us per day."

The official also denied any problems doing business with India, even though there have been problems over payment arrangements for more than a year.

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Iran Feature: The Economy --- Assessing The Real Rate of Unemployment (Salehi-Isfahani)

The Statistical Center of Iran report for summer 1390 (2011) puts the size of the active labor force at 23.4 million, lower than the same figure reported for spring 1390 (24.4 million).  Assuming a small growth rate of 0.5% in the population of the 10+ age groups over one quarter, if the participation rate had not decreased we should have seen a labor force of about 24.6 million for last summer.  This leaves a rather large gap of about 1.2 million ‘missing workers’ who could be safely assumed to have been discouraged and therefore in fact unemployed.  So, instead of 2.6 million unemployed counted in the survey we could have as many as 3.8 million unemployed, in which case the real unemployment rate would be — deep breath! — as high as 15.2 percent.

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