TechRasa- It’s not far from imagination that a country with 80 million population and high market potential would create 100k jobs in a matter of few years.

According to Tasnim News, Minister Mahmoud Vaezi announced some interesting statistics about Iranian startups in a meeting with the Chamber of Commerce. Vaezi also mentioned that about 110k local apps have been developed which also raises the importance of locally created content. “A movement has started in the country on generating content on the digital space which the government fully supports,” said Vaezi.

Another interesting info that the minister mentioned was the number of jobs that has been created by startups in the country so far. According to Iran’s Minister of Communications about 100k jobs have been directly or indirectly created by startups in Iran. This by definition includes startup employees which are considered as direct job creations. Indirect jobs includes the ones created around startups specially startup platforms like Ride-hailings, market places, freelance platforms and mix & match platforms.

In the past year the number of jobs created by/through Iranian startups have grown exponentially, which also helped in promoting the usage of technology in the country. Unofficial statistics also show that graduates that enter the Iranian tech scene are less likely to leave the country for higher education or better work opportunities, which translates into lower brain drain rate in startups and tech companies comparing to other sectors.

Startups that have created major direct and in-direct jobs include Snapp, Tap30, DigiKala, Bamilo, Cafe Bazaar, Ponisha, Faranesh and many others. Snapp currently has around 30k registered drivers which that alone could count as 1/3 of the total job opportunities created so far. Bamilo at the other hand is an Amazon like marketplace which has also provides opportunity to individual merchants that do not have a physical store to sell their products online. DigiKala has also become the main retail giant in Iran which has boosted some of the suppliers’ sales which has indirectly also created more job opportunity. It’s also good to mention that Digikala has more than 1400 employees working for the startup.

The impact that startups have created in Iran are being recognized nationally, as technology products are creating value for Iranian users and more jobs are created daily. Though many traditional businesses may not like losing their market shares by new businesses, the disruptive innovation startups have generated have created great value that are creating jobs daily.