Iran’s labor minister resigned on Tuesday amid daily nationwide protests by pensioners, merchants and workers against soaring living costs.

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 for his handling of the labor market and a meagre rise in the retirement pensions.”
”His failure to create a planned number of jobs and the growing protests over insufficient raises in the retirement pensions had fueled speculations that parliament will impeach him,” Tasnim said in its English-language site.

The Ministry of Labour, Welfare and Social Security had said it would increase pensions by 57.4 percent to 55.8 million Iranian rials ($177) 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 laborers and retirees,” senior MP Nasser Mousavi Laregani told parliament. He said pensioners had to forsake their dignity and go to the street to make their demands. 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.”

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