War and prolonged internet blackouts wiped out jobs across Iran, from gig work to industry, with women in informal and small-business employment hit hardest.
The United States and Israel have temporarily halted their attacks on Iran. In Iran, the halt to the deadly attacks has reduced the psychological pressure, even if only temporarily. The financial damage caused by U.S. and Israeli attacks on the steel, petrochemical, and infrastructure sectors has still not been disclosed. Nor is it clear to what extent these attacks have increased the number of unemployed.
Farshad Esmaeili, a labor and social security lawyer and legal consultant, wrote on X on April 6, 2026: “It was not workers who became unemployed; jobs were destroyed.” He had also written on March 9, 2026:
“During these 40 days of war, together with the internet shutdown, thousands of people lost their jobs and thousands lost their businesses. Restore the internet as soon as possible. The unemployment crisis has multiple irreparable social consequences.”
People working in “online” businesses had already experienced internet shutdowns shortly before the U.S. and Israeli aggression, because of widespread protests. This time, however, the blackout has been longer. In an interview with the newspaper Shargh, managers at one of Iran’s two major online transportation companies described the condition of start-up firms as having suffered “three major blows” in a single year: the 12-day war in June 2025, which began with Israel’s attack on Iran; the January 2026 uprising; and then the U.S. and Israeli attack on Iran in February–March 2026. According to this manager, the situation “not only causes financial losses, it also leads to the unemployment of some staff. In that case, support services and many technical services disappear. At the same time, all our new projects that required hiring new workers have been wiped out, and we have suffered major financial losses.”
Shargh quoted this manager of the online ride-hailing company as saying:
Because we have a major sponsor, we have so far managed to avoid laying people off. But we know that many of the content-production and tourism companies we worked with have stopped operating, and that will lead to serious layoffs.
There are no precise figures for the number of workers employed in this sector, but in recent years, as industrial employment has declined, the number of workers in what is called the “gig economy” has grown significantly. Farshad Momeni, an “institutionalist” economist in Iran, said in summer 2025 that eight million registered drivers were working on the Snapp and Tapsi platforms. Tabnak, citing the Statistical Center of Iran, also reported that in 2025–2026, the number of workers in online businesses reached 11 million. It is not clear how many of them are now unemployed.
In recent days, some social media users who, according to their own accounts, spent several million tomans to buy VPNs and reconnect to the global internet, wrote that they had lost their jobs because of the war. Among them were workers in the restaurant and café sector, salespeople, repair workers, and journalists.
The Tehran Journalists’ Trade Association, in a statement that did not provide an exact number, confirmed the dismissal of journalists. The statement, published on April 9, 2026, says: “Field evidence and received reports indicate that in recent months, the intensification of financial difficulties at media institutions, alongside the sharp increase in production costs—especially in paper and printing—the reduction of revenue sources, particularly in advertising, and disruptions in access to internet communication infrastructure, have made the work of many media outlets far more difficult. In the meantime, communication restrictions and the shutdown of the international internet have had deeper effects on the functioning of online media. Cut-off access, the restriction of certain communication platforms, difficulties in publishing and distributing content, and disruptions in two-way interaction with audiences have in practice impaired some of the core functions of digital media.”
The association went on to describe the consequences of this situation as “alarming,” referring to the reduction in the number of pages in print media and the curtailment of online media activity, which has “produced a wave of layoffs in March and April 2026, leading to the unemployment of a number of journalists and media workers.”
“Everyone Has Been Laid Off”
Workers in “gig economy” businesses are not the only ones harmed by the war that lasted 40 days and may resume. In a report published on April 8, 2026, Shargh wrote:
The wave of layoffs across different occupations has now reached its highest level; and it appears that this trend will continue even in the new year, and in the coming months we will face more and more people who have lost their jobs. Yet there are still no precise statistics on these layoffs and dismissals during the height of the war and the internet shutdown. From flight attendants and reporters to booksellers and engineers who had been working in technology companies, all have been left without work.
Citing human resources managers at large firms and institutions, the report wrote that “to stay afloat, they have no choice but to reduce their workforce.” Maryam Zendehdel, a labor rights consultant, also described the dismissal of workers under the impact of war as “natural.” She said:
For now, there are no figures on the number of layoffs, but the war has become one of the main factors behind widespread dismissals in the country. At the same time, the internet shutdown is a second factor that has brought some other occupations to a halt. For example, when there is no platform for marketing—even for large and well-known companies—it is only natural that they will lay off workers in that sector. As we know, this is already happening in many companies.
Fatemeh Azizkhani, an economist whose name appears in some reports by the Parliament Research Center, also said on April 9, 2026, that even before the war, “the labor market was suffering from a kind of chronic illness.” She told Eco Iran: “The outbreak of war, as an external shock, intensified and deepened the situation. Even firms that had previously been able to continue operating fell into recession once the war began. For example, sectors such as air transport, tourism, urban transport, and many businesses dependent on platforms like Snapp saw their activity decline or stop altogether. The internet shutdown also had a direct impact on programmers and digital businesses.”
According to her, “construction, tourism, air transport, and information-technology-based activities” are among the groups that “have suffered the greatest damage.” Azizkhani then added that disruptions in the internet network are one reason for the indirect damage to jobs, but that “another part comes from direct damage to production units; for example, large industries such as steel and petrochemicals that were directly hit and as a result lost part of their workforce.”
Petrochemicals, Steel, Pharmaceuticals: Destructive Bombs
From the very first days, the United States and Israel targeted Iran’s industrial zones. In the attack on the Payard flour and starch factory in Naqadeh, 11 workers were killed. The Tabriz bearing factory, Abgineh Qazvin, a heating and cooling equipment manufacturer in Isfahan, the Arak aluminum complex, the Pasteur Institute, Tofigh Daru, and a number of petrochemical plants and oil storage facilities were among the industrial units destroyed by U.S. and Israeli missiles and bombs.
Hadi Ahmadi, head of public relations at the Iranian Pharmacists Association, said on April 7, 2026, that the United States and Israel had directly and indirectly bombed 25 pharmaceutical production units and factories.
Provincial state officials have also reported the total or partial destruction of dozens of small and medium-sized production units in industrial towns. The newspaper Donya-ye Eqtesad, the unofficial outlet of Iran’s “neoliberal” current, wrote on April 8, 2026, referring to the consequences of the 12-day war, which had already led to the loss of 650,000 jobs: “A decline of 650,000 in employment among more than 24 million employed people, according to the latest figures from the Statistical Center of Iran, is shocking.”
The report went on to note that, with the prolongation of the war that began with the “aggression of Israel and the United States against Iran,” “there are aggravating factors that affect estimates of labor-force unemployment.” One of these factors is the duration of this war, which lasted 40 days—“more than three times the 12-day war”—and “also led to a longer internet shutdown.”
Citing “some experts,” Donya-ye Eqtesad estimated that the 40-day war may have thrown “two million people” out of work. Earlier, Iranian domestic media had said that attacks on petrochemical plants were expected to wipe out 100,000 jobs. Donya-ye Eqtesad estimated: “Following damage to one of the country’s largest steel complexes, which led to a halt in the production process, around 20,000 jobs were directly tied to it, and more than 50,000 jobs were indirectly dependent on it.” The report did not disclose where this complex was located, but it wrote: “In the city where this complex operated, around 9,000 businesses were active, of which about 5,500 were dependent on this company.”
The Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor, and Social Welfare has announced that under wartime regulations, unemployed workers are eligible for unemployment benefits, and it has asked workers to register on the designated platform.
War Against Women
Women’s share of Iran’s labor market was already very small even before the war: 12 to 14 percent, compared to 60 percent for men. Many women worked in small workshops and informal jobs. Now, according to Azizkhani, they have suffered “the greatest damage.”
She said: “No precise statistics have yet been published that would allow us to say with certainty whether women have been harmed more than men. The nature of the current shock is also different. Many of the enterprises that were directly hit and lost employment probably had predominantly male workers. But the experience of previous shocks, such as Covid or other crises, shows that the more vulnerable group is usually women.”
Based on the seasonal labor-force census reports for summer and autumn, this economist said: “The bulk of the decline in employment—whether due to water and power outages, staff cuts by firms, or the shock of war—has fallen on women.” For that reason, she said, “it is predicted that women, especially women heads of household, will be more vulnerable this time as well. Since a large share of women’s employment is in small and informal enterprises, it is natural that the scale of the damage to them—especially in terms of lost income—will be greater.”
Some of the workers who lost their jobs may return to work quickly, but in industrial occupations—especially in large enterprises that suffered serious damage and whose production chains were disrupted—the return to work will take much longer. This is an issue with the potential to become a crisis, especially as the inflation rate is already on an upward path and the war has accelerated it.
