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Unemployment is skyrocketing in Iran as the war with the United States drags on. People are losing jobs and livelihoods as inflation soars, with many saying they are not just having to borrow to make ends meet but are putting life on hold. From Istanbul, NPR spoke with Iranians, and international correspondent Hadeel Al-Shalchi shares their stories.
HADEEL AL-SHALCHI, BYLINE: Rasoul (ph), a 42-year-old engineer in Tehran, had a good job at a tech company. He felt economically secure until the war hit. Then he started worrying.
RASOUL: (Non-English language spoken).
AL-SHALCHI: "I always used to tell my wife, if worst comes to worst, I'll just drive for Snapp!," he says. That's a ride-sharing app, the Iranian equivalent to Uber, that uses a local cellular network totally under the regime's control. The day Rasoul feared eventually came. Like all Iranians NPR spoke to for this report, Rasoul asked not to use his full name for fear of retribution from the government. In January, Iranian authorities cut the internet network people used to communicate with the outside world during a brutal crackdown on protests. The disruption damaged his company's delivery service.
RASOUL: (Non-English language spoken).
AL-SHALCHI: "The company's situation got really bad," Rasoul says. "They were losing customers one by one." He eventually lost his job in mid-February.
RASOUL: (Non-English language spoken).
AL-SHALCHI: "I was going through a period of severe depression," Rasoul says. It's been more than six months since the U.S. and Israel went to war in Iran, and Iranians have had to bear the brunt of the consequences. There are rising gas prices, rising food prices, rising rent prices and a rise in unemployment. Rasoul struggled to pay living expenses and could barely afford rent, and it took a toll mentally. To survive, he reluctantly tried driving for Snapp! at night.
RASOUL: (Non-English language spoken).
AL-SHALCHI: "I remember being extremely anxious accepting a ride, waiting, having the passenger to get in and so on," Rasoul says. But with gas prices and car repairs, it quickly got too expensive, and the U.S.-Israeli strikes made it too dangerous to keep driving for Snapp!. He leaned on his family to make ends meet and says, at this point, even having kids is out of the question.
RASOUL: (Non-English language spoken).
AL-SHALCHI: "I thought that after marriage, I could keep working and traveling, going places together. But since we got married, nothing," he says. Rasoul officially joined the ranks of Iran's growing unemployed. The official unemployment rate in Iran is 9%, but analysts say the real number is likely much higher. The demand for work is so high that the Iranian job-seeking website, Job Vision, said on April 25, it saw a 50% bump in resume submissions.
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ALIREZA MAHJOUB: (Non-English language spoken).
AL-SHALCHI: Alireza Mahjoub is the head of Iran's Workers (ph) House, the country's main labor organization. In a TV interview on state media in May, he said unemployment numbers were way worse than he expected.
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MAHJOUB: (Non-English language spoken).
AL-SHALCHI: "We don't know how much it will afflict our already fragile working class, leaving us all helpless and powerless," Mahjoub said.
Kayvan (ph) knows the helplessness all too well. He's a 42-year-old materials engineer from Tehran. He helped a Chinese company start a business specializing in raw materials for the oil sector. But then the war started.
KAYVAN: (Non-English language spoken).
AL-SHALCHI: "The environment became so unsafe. Transit routes and shipping routes were shut down. The Strait of Hormuz was closed. Sea transport became impossible," Kayvan says. Clients stopped placing orders, and eventually, his company had to shut down. He says losing his job was tough.
KAYVAN: (Non-English language spoken).
AL-SHALCHI: "It was like those American movies where people dump their belongings into a box and clear out their desk," Kayvan says. He says his family relied on his wife's income and dipped into their personal savings.
KAYVAN: (Non-English language spoken).
AL-SHALCHI: "Terrifying inflation, unprecedented price hikes - we've genuinely never experienced days like these before," he says. Right now, Kayvan just wants the war to end.
KAYVAN: (Non-English language spoken).
AL-SHALCHI: "We're all just falling apart," he says.
Former Snapp! driver Rasoul was able to finally find a job in July as a sales manager, but even that is shaky.
RASOUL: (Non-English language spoken).
AL-SHALCHI: "We're like passengers on a train," he says. "We don't know if the bridge ahead is broken or intact." Hadeel Al-Shalchi, NPR News, Istanbul. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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