Iran workers face delayed wages, lost benefits and job fears
Workers across several sectors in Iran say employers are delaying or splitting wage payments, cutting benefits and warning staff they could lose their jobs for protesting, as inflation and rising living costs deepen pressure on households.
Messages sent to Iran International by employees at companies spanning the automotive, energy, pharmaceutical and aviation industries describe wages arriving weeks or months late, with some workers saying they have taken second jobs to cover everyday expenses.
Several employees said their salaries were being paid in installments rather than on schedule. Others described losing workplace benefits or being told to resign if they objected to payment delays.
File photo of workers at an industrial facility in Iran.
Workers across several sectors in Iran say employers are delaying or splitting wage payments, cutting benefits and warning staff they could lose their jobs for protesting, as inflation and rising living costs deepen pressure on households.
Messages sent to Iran International by employees at companies spanning the automotive, energy, pharmaceutical and aviation industries describe wages arriving weeks or months late, with some workers saying they have taken second jobs to cover everyday expenses.
Several employees said their salaries were being paid in installments rather than on schedule. Others described losing workplace benefits or being told to resign if they objected to payment delays.
Delayed wages and disappearing benefits
Two workers at Megamotor, a subsidiary of automaker Saipa, criticized the company's wage and benefit payments in messages to Iran International.
Salary payments became irregular after the 40-day war, one worker said.
“We are suffering greatly and do not know how we can provide for our families.”
Another Megamotor employee said some wages and benefits, including overtime and meal allowances, were no longer being paid to workers, while managers and supervisors continued to receive overtime and other benefits.
Low pay at Saipa Yadak has forced most employees to work for the Snapp ride-hailing service from the afternoon until late at night, an employee of the auto-parts company said.
Some of the company's resources are spent on government ceremonies or large payments to senior managers, the employee added.
Workers at Bahman Motor are also facing financial and psychological pressure, an employee of the automaker said.
The company has declined to make payments to employees even as it continues constructing new industrial buildings, according to the employee.
File photo of workers carrying out construction and maintenance work in Iran.
The accounts come as Iran's economic problems have deepened in recent months alongside the Islamic Republic's regional policies, tighter sanctions and a sharp decline in the value of the national currency.
Rapid inflation and declining purchasing power have increased pressure on household budgets and made basic goods harder to afford for a broad section of the population.
Iran International reported in August that workers at mines and companies had gone months without receiving wages.
Workers say complaints put jobs at risk
Employees at other companies described wages being divided into installments and said challenging the delays could put their jobs at risk.
Salaries at Imen Tak Pishro in Jajrud are paid in installments and employees who object are warned they could be dismissed, one worker told.
Another employee previously told Iran International that their employer paid three months of overdue salaries in two installments.
Mapna has not paid workers at 25 power plants for 40 days, an employee of the company said.
At pharmaceutical company Arya Tinagen, salaries remained unpaid 11 days into the month, an employee said.
“The company has cut all employee benefits, from meals to the monthly benefit card. If we complain, they tell us to resign and leave.”
Messages in recent days have also described overdue wages, unpaid insurance contributions and warnings of dismissal across a range of workplaces.
An employee at Yasuj University of Medical Sciences said at the time that staff had gone three months without salaries and were warned they could lose their jobs if they pursued their demands.
Second jobs and unemployment fears
For some workers, irregular wages and rising living costs have made additional employment a necessity. For others, the concern is whether their main job will survive at all.
An employee at Ata Airlines said inflation, the rising exchange rate and aviation sanctions had led the carrier to cut jobs.
The airline had previously borrowed billions of tomans in an effort to avoid dismissing employees, according to the worker.
Employees at Kish Air said they had been instructed not to report for work until further notice and had not received a year's worth of performance-related payments.
Concerns extend beyond individual companies.
Large numbers of factories at the Shamsabad industrial estate have shut down, one person familiar with employment conditions there told Iran International.
The person said they had filled out around 50 job applications for factories in the industrial estate without receiving an offer.
The accounts follow broader signs of concern about employment. In an Iran International survey published in August, 92% of respondents said they had witnessed unemployment among people around them.
A woman walks past a person using an ATM outside a Bank Saderat branch in Iran.
Iran’s deepening isolation is drawing divided reactions from Persian-language social media users, with some welcoming US pressure to weaken the country’s rulers and others warning that ordinary people will bear the cost without producing political change.
The posts reviewed by Iran International reflect individual online reactions and are not representative of public opinion in Iran. But they show how the growing economic pressure is being interpreted by people arguing both for and against the blockade.
That pressure has intensified as the US naval blockade sharply curtailed Iran’s oil exports, a major source of foreign currency. Iranian crude loadings fell from about 2 million barrels per day in March to roughly 220,000-255,000 in August, according to shipping data cited by Reuters.
“Great. An air and sea blockade, then a land blockade, will lead to the government’s fall,” one Persian-language social media user wrote.
“The economic blockade is choking it,” another wrote.
Support for continued pressure has also appeared on Reddit. “I said months ago that the blockade is a good strategy,” one commenter wrote, expressing hope that US President Donald Trump would maintain it.
Another user in the discussion described maintaining the pressure as “Great for Iran.”
Taken together, the posts illustrate a view among supporters of the blockade that restricting trade and government revenue could weaken the Islamic Republic’s ability to withstand domestic pressure.
One user argued that the blockade could erode the authorities’ ability to administer and control the country by reducing oil revenue, weakening internal cohesion and increasing economic pressure.
“The blockade is not the objective, but the instrument,” he wrote, arguing that the aim was to increase pressure until the authorities struggled to maintain stability and manage the economy.
Others say ordinary Iranians will pay
Other users rejected the idea that economic isolation would bring political change and warned that the greatest burden would instead fall on the public.
“I don’t know of an example in history where sanctions and an economic blockade caused a revolution. Ordinary people just suffer,” one user wrote on X.
Another said prolonged isolation could strengthen corruption and preferential access, leaving politically connected people better placed to profit from shortages while the wider population becomes poorer.
“This situation could continue for years,” the user wrote, adding that the authorities could blame worsening economic conditions on the blockade.
For others, the consequences are already visible far beyond politics and trade.
“You can’t leave the country by air or sea. All the language exams have sanctioned us. Eighty percent of online games are restricted for Iranians. You can’t even create a Gmail account,” another person wrote on Instagram.
“It’s as though the project to erase Iranians from the face of the earth has officially begun,” the user added.
Dark humor over growing isolation
The restrictions have also prompted sarcasm directed at official assertions of resilience.
After Turkish Airlines suspended its Iran flights until at least March 2027, one commenter ironically invoked a familiar phrase in Iranian political rhetoric: “America can’t do a damn thing.”
“They just keep announcing victories one after another,” another wrote with laughing emojis.
A longer sarcastic comment mocked rhetoric about missiles, drones and military strength before concluding: “If the blockade continues, soon we’ll have to eat grass.”
Economic hardship also featured in discussions on Reddit. One commenter said half their monthly salary went on groceries and food and the other half on rent, leaving them dependent on savings. Another described paying 15 million rials for a kilogram of cold cuts and pickles.
The rial has fallen sharply during the economic squeeze, trading at more than 2.3 million to the dollar in September.
Iran’s official minimum monthly wage is about 166 million rials, worth roughly $71 at that exchange rate, meaning the purchase described by the commenter would amount to about 9% of a minimum-wage worker’s basic monthly pay.
Social media users in Iran say their phone lines have been cut off after posting political content or liking posts on Instagram, extending a practice previously reported among political activists and journalists.
Messages received by Iran International describe SIM cards being blocked without warning, demands for written pledges and difficulty finding out which authority can restore service.
The reports include a 70-year-old woman in Tehran who said she was summoned several times after posting a WhatsApp story supporting the Pahlavi dynasty. Her SIM card was blocked, and she was eventually required to sign a pledge not to publish similar content again.
The woman said she does not have an Instagram account and is not otherwise active on social media.
The use of SIM card blocking to pressure social media users has been reported before. On September 12, Iran International reported that political and civil activists in several cities had lost access to their phone lines without prior notice and had been unable to resolve the restrictions.
Phone lines blocked without warning
Other citizens said their phone lines were disconnected after they liked political posts on Instagram. Many said they received no explanation or advance notice.
One person told Iran International that his sister and brother-in-law had moved to Finland about three years ago, but his sister’s Hamrah-e Aval SIM card, which he had kept in Iran, was deactivated “by order of the cyber police.”
Another Iranian wrote to Iran International that all his phone lines had been blocked for two months.
“I went to the telecommunications office, and they said it was on the prosecutor’s orders. No matter which authority I approach, they won’t tell me what I’m supposed to do,” he wrote.
He said he was directed to call a number that he later learned belonged to the Revolutionary Guards’ Intelligence Organization.
“I’ve called many times, and no one answers. My entire life has been paralyzed,” he added.
A Tehran resident responding to his account said his SIM card had also been blocked in February or March and that he had gone to a prosecutor’s office in the capital to seek its restoration.
Written pledges
Iran International has previously reported that some citizens had their SIM cards blocked after publishing content critical of the Islamic Republic online.
Some were referred to the prosecutor’s office’s cyberspace division or Gerdab to seek restoration of service. In certain cases, they said they were required to sign written pledges to refrain from further critical activity.
Several families of people killed in the January 2026 crackdown in Iran have also said their SIM cards were blocked in recent weeks without notice after they shared information about their loved ones.
Daily life disrupted
Reports received by Iran International describe how SIM card blocking has disrupted citizens’ daily lives.
Many said mobile phones and phone lines are essential for everyday activities and that losing access can disrupt banking, ride-hailing and other online services.
Citizens also said they had received no clear explanation for why their lines were blocked or how to have them restored.
They described confusion and severe disruption to their lives, saying the restrictions had been imposed without judicial proceedings.
Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian addresses the 81st United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) at UN headquarters in New York City, US, September 23, 2026.
Masoud Pezeshkian told the UN that Iran would not accept the language of force. Iranians writing to Iran International had one reply: that is the only language his government uses at home. Their messages picked apart what he said, what he left out, and how he said it.
Speaking at the 81st General Assembly on Wednesday, the president said Tehran was ready for dialogue but rejected "the language of force," called Donald Trump's words a sign of "the character of a bully and the logic of force," and held up photographs of the late Ali Khamenei and of schoolchildren killed in the strike on Minab in the war's first hours.
Three things drew the messages: the gap between the president's posture abroad and the state's conduct at home; the crackdown of January that he did not name; and the way he spoke.
The most frequent reaction set the president's words in New York beside the state's words in Iran.
"The Islamic Republic wants dialogue with anyone stronger than itself," one wrote, "and bullies its own defenseless people."
Another pointed to Pezeshkian's repeated use of the word force: inside Iran the state threatens America, he wrote, and in New York it asks "why are you bullying us."
The president's own language on the January protests was not far from writers' minds. In August he called the protests a "riot" and described those who reported the killings as "cowards and traitors," remarks that had drawn an earlier wave of messages. On January 11, days after the killings, he had called the protesters "terrorists" and demanded a "decisive" response from the security forces.
One writer put it in a single line: for 47 years the Islamic Republic has been busy with terror, and now Pezeshkian comes to play the victim.
Another watched the delivery rather than the text. "People like Pezeshkian only claim power and swagger in front of us," he wrote. "From the trembling voice, the stumbles and the level of stress in his speech, it was clear how brave he is in front of real superpowers."
Pezeshkian never used the word protests. The Iranians he described in the streets these past seven months were the crowds at the state's own rallies, organized by the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij, out at night, in his telling, to defend the country against people "America and Israel had incited and put guns in the hands of."
The millions who came out against the state, and the tens of thousands killed, did not appear in the speech at all.
A writer from Qeshm, the island in the Strait of Hormuz, said the president had repeated the state's version of the protests instead of speaking about Iran's own victims, including those killed on January 8 and 9 and in earlier crackdowns.
Others treated the speech as an occasion to list what it omitted: the protests of December 2017 and January 2018, Bloody November in 2019, the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising of 2022, the January 2026 uprising, and the poisoning of girls' schools in 2022 and 2023.
The messages came days after the UN fact-finding mission on Iran presented its latest report. Its chair, Sara Hossain, said the January crackdown had met protests with an "extremely violent" response, and that many of the violations, including killings and imprisonment, amounted to crimes against humanity.
Several writers said that Iranians themselves had been pushed to the margins of the speech. "Pezeshkian was more a defender of the Revolutionary Guards and of Palestine," one wrote, "than someone who wanted to say anything about the people of his own country."
How he said it
The third and most personal thread was the president's manner: his walk, his delivery, his command of his own text.
Many described his bearing as a street tough's swagger and compared him to Shaban Bi-Mokh, the Tehran strongman whose mobs helped bring down the government in the 1953 coup and whose nickname means "the brainless." Writers said his grip on the speech was so weak that a passerby pulled off the street and put at the UN lectern would have spoken more fluently and said more.
A writer from Tehran said he had been ashamed to watch Pezeshkian represent Iran, in a speech he found empty of manners, culture or "any diplomatic decorum."
"Why can't he speak properly?" another asked. "He talked as if someone had a gun to his head."
One writer compared the speech to those of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi and said the level of language from the president of the Islamic Republic had left him astonished.
Several concluded that the delivery reflected the office. Pezeshkian, they wrote, has no authority of his own; he reads what is written for him and handed to him.
"That is why they made him president," one wrote. "The text they write for him usually has a fixed structure, and it is on file at the foreign ministry and the presidency."
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, seen from behind, listens as President Masoud Pezeshkian addresses the UN General Assembly in New York on September 23, 2026.
Iranians writing to Iran International this week did not see a diplomatic visit. They saw the men they hold responsible for January's massacre walking free in New York, and they asked the city's mayor, who once promised to arrest Netanyahu, why.
As President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived for the UN General Assembly, the messages came in with a phrase that recurred until it became the story's own name: the "killers in suits." The demand attached to it was the same almost every time. Arrest them.
Voices from Iran draws on messages sent to Iran International by people inside the country. Names are withheld for their safety.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi (left) and other members of Iran's delegation in the General Assembly hall listen as President Masoud Pezeshkian speaks in New York on September 23, 2026.
The demand
A writer from Fardis, on the western edge of Karaj, pointed to the latest human rights reports and asked why officials responsible for crushing 40,000 protesters in January were not being detained in New York.
Another wrote simply that now they were there, this was a good chance to arrest Pezeshkian and Araghchi.
The UN fact-finding mission on Iran said in its new report that many of the violations committed in the crackdown on the January 2026 protests, including murder, imprisonment and severe deprivation of liberty, amounted to crimes against humanity. Its chair, Sara Hossain, said the true number of victims could be "significantly" higher than the government's own figure.
One writer suggested that while the officials were at the United Nations, footage and documents of the killings should be handed to the same body. Others addressed Donald Trump directly, asking him to act on the crackdown rather than host or negotiate with the delegation.
And several turned to Zohran Mamdani, who as a candidate for mayor of New York said he would have Benjamin Netanyahu arrested if the Israeli prime minister set foot in the city, citing the International Criminal Court warrant against him.
"The mayor of New York who wanted to arrest Netanyahu," one wrote, "does he by any chance not intend to arrest the criminals in suits who sit on the Supreme National Security Council and whose signatures are on the massacre of January 8 and 9?"
The visas
A second thread was anger at what writers called the West's double standard: condemning the repression while receiving the men accused of it.
"My question is this," one wrote. "Didn't Mr. Trump always talk about the January massacre? So why has he given visas to the ringleaders of the killers of Iran's children?"
The State Department has said that admitting the core members of the Iranian delegation was an obligation Washington carries as host of the United Nations, and that the delegation's movements were restricted. The US government also agreed to Araghchi's request for a security detail during his stay.
"Bodies attached to the United Nations say the leaders of the Islamic Republic have committed crimes against humanity," another writer addressed the president. "Why are they now freely, and even under your escort, in America and at the UN?"
Not everyone expected an arrest. One writer said it was probably beyond the West to detain the officials, and proposed instead that Iranians abroad gather outside UN headquarters.
'A puppet'
The other constant in the messages was that Pezeshkian does not decide anything, and that his presence at the UN is a performance of the system that does.
Writers called him a marionette, a wind-up doll, and the tea boy of the power mafia, and called the trip a circus staged for legitimacy.
Some pointed to how little it achieved. One wrote that for years the Islamic Republic's only gain from attending the UN had been shopping in New York, and that Trump had taken even that away.
Last September the State Department restricted the Iranian delegation's access to wholesale and luxury stores during its stay.
Beneath the mockery ran a fear. Several writers worried that a deal might be struck, and that the file on the killings would be pushed aside for it.
