Iran orders out 1 million foreign workers

Iran has ordered employers to fire an estimated 1 million foreign workers by Saturday, saying most of them were illegal aliens.

A Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs official, quoted by the daily Hamshahri, said employers of foreign workers must replace them with Iranian employees. Iran, which suffers from an official unemployment rate of nearly 11 per cent, is home to 2 million refugees - 1.4 million from Afghanistan and 600,000 from Iraq.

Reuter - Tehran