While in most countries, recessions usually result in mass unemployment, in Iran the government policy has been to contain potential labor unrest by avoiding large-scale layoffs. (Of course, all that is going to change once the draconian Subsidies Rationalization Law goes into effect after the Iranian New Year in late March.)
The root cause of the present industrial malaise is neither the international financial crisis nor the world economic slump--after all, Iran's economy is largely immune from global economic vicissitudes. The most important factor is the import craze that has characterized the past five years.
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