Iran’s labour minister resigns amid protests against rising living costs

Iran’s labour minister resigned yesterday amid daily nationwide protests by pensioners, merchants and workers against soaring living costs, Reuters reported.

The agency said while it was not clear if Hojatollah Abdolmaleki’s resignation was directly related to the month-long protests, a senior MP blamed his “incompetence” for the unrest.

The semi-official Tasnim news site said his resignation followed “mounting criticism of his handling of the labour market and a meagre rise in pensions.”

“His failure to create a planned number of jobs and the growing protests over insufficient raises in pensions had fuelled speculations that parliament will impeach him,” Tasnim said on its English-language site.

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The Ministry of Labour, Welfare and Social Security had said it would increase pensions by 57.4 per cent a month. But pensioners said it was too little too late to cope with years of inflation.

“The level of distrust is unprecedented as we witness protests and anger of labourers and retirees,” senior MP Nasser Mousavi Laregani told parliament. He said pensioners had to forsake their dignity and take to the streets to make their demands known. The blame lies “squarely on Abdolmaleki’s incompetence,” he added.

Government spokesperson Ali Bahadori Jahromi told reporters the administration of President Ebrahim Raisi was “doing its best to lessen the pressures on the people” and to “find ways to offer assistance to retirees”.