Rural labour market disequilibrium might become more critical in the next few year. This is, on the one hand, due to an increase in the supply of labour force which itself is the result of low population average age and high level of education, as well as high rate of inflation. On the other hand it is the result of low demand for the rural labour due to the inability of agricultural sector to creat employment opportunities. In this study supply of the rural labour force was assumed as a function of educational coverage, agricultural value added, rural unemployment rate, consumer price index, rate of higher education and rate of urbanization. The result of study revealed that annual average increase in the rural labour force would be 125000 persons. In order to lower the unemployment rate from 15.7 % to 9.4 % by the end of the third development plan, creation of 200000 new job opportunities is required. The result of study also indicated that creation of 71000 new job opportunities annually would lead to an unemployment rate of 16.8 percent.
Inability to create sufficient job opportunities would lead to the migration of the rural unemployed to the urban areas. To avoid the social costs of this event, the proper labour force policies should carefully focus on the shortcomings of the prevailing rural labour market in Iran.