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the highest PMI registering 56.3. Wood, paper and furnishings posted the lowest score, at 35.9.
Looking at index components, output and new and contributed to the month-on-month decrease in the headline PMI figure, while suppliers' delivery times and employment scores improved.
The reading for exports in the fifth month fell from to 44.65 from 46.84.
4.3 ​Labour and income
4.3.1​Labour market, unemployment dynamics
Pandemic ‘could leave up to quarter of Iran’s workforce jobless’
Iran sets aside $305mn for unemployed workers hit by COVID-19 turmoil
As many as 6.43mn Iranians, making up around a quarter of the workforce of Iran, could find themselves jobless because of the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, according to a study by Iran’s Parliament Research Centre.
A minimum of 2.87mn jobs would be lost amid the health and economic emergency, the study also concluded.
Given the added difficulties caused to US-sanctions-hit Iran by the virus outbreak, its economy would shrink between 7.5% and 11%, it also said. Iran’s non-oil dollar exports fell by almost 30% y/y in the four-week period starting February 20, while exports fell by 7% y/y in the year ended March 19, official statistics cited by the report showed.
President Hassan Rouhani on April 29 said Iran has reopened for business despite the persistent coronavirus difficulties as there was no end in sight to the crisis. "Due to uncertainty about when this virus will end, we are preparing for work, activity and science," he said.
"We have to follow all the medical instructions, but work and production are as essential as these precautions," he told a televised cabinet meeting.
Rouhani also said the number of people contracting the coronavirus was on the decline and that most of Iran’s hospital beds were now empty, IRNA reported.
Footage released by state broadcaster IRIB on April 30 showed busy streets in downtown Tehran with many people not wearing face masks seen in tight spaces including in shopping malls. A reporter was filmed asking people why they were out in such an environment. Many replied that they had no choice.
By the end of April 30, Iran had officially ​recorded​ 94,640 coronavirus infections (up 983 on the day) and 6,028 deaths of people from, or with, coronavirus (up 71 on the day).
The Iranian government has set aside Iranian rial (IRR) 50 trillion ($305mn at the free market rate, $1.2bn at the government rate) for unemployed workers in the wake of the mass layoffs that have occurred as a result of the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis, IRNA reported on April 7.
Thousands of casual workers have been laid off in Iran in recent weeks. Annual bonuses have also been scrapped given the crippling financial situation in the country caused by its coronavirus outbreak, the worst in the Middle East.
15​ IRAN Country Report May 2020 www.intellinews.com