The Iranian people have elected Hassan Rouhani in the hope that his government would reverse the failed economic policies of the Ahmadinejad years. President-elect Rouhani understands the challenges ahead and has stated that his administration will develop and implement short and medium-term plans to reverse the current economic trends. He has also declared that fighting unemployment will be his top priority.  

However, it is clear that in its bid to promote employment, a Rouhani administration will face many restrictions. This article will focus on Rouhani’s stated top priority of job creation and assess expectations of how a Rouhani government will reverse the country's unemployment trends.

Before analyzing the actual challenge, one needs to appreciate two important parameters in the emerging Rouhani government:

• Rouhani has headed the Center for Strategic Research, a think tank affiliated with the Expediency Council, since its 1995 inception. This institute has made it possible for Rouhani and his team to carry out research on key challenges in Iranian politics and economics. Hopefully, this ongoing analysis and research will help the new team develop remedies more efficiently. 
• It is expected that the Rouhani cabinet will include a number of former ministers from the pre-Ahmadinejad administrations. These figures will provide the new government with their previous experience in government and even more recent lessons from having been outside the government for a few years. Their familiarity with the private sector should help them become more sensitive to the challenges that nongovernmental players face in Iran.

Job creation will be significantly facilitated by the private sector's confidence in this moderate cleric and his team. One should also not underestimate the effort by the Rouhani team to include private sector representatives in the campaign and potentially to appoint the current president of the Iran Chamber of Commerce, Mohammad Nahavandian, as the new minister of industry and trade. The positive mood could also be captured in a statement by the veteran merchant, Habibollah Asgaroladi who said: “The country has not witnessed this level of calm for more than 20 years!” Obviously, the Iranian business community will benefit from a period of political stability and legal sustainability that a Rouhani government seems to promise.