Iranian teachers and nurses are announcing their resignations on camera in a campaign drawing attention to worsening economic conditions and the growing difficulty of living on their salaries. Videos describing final working days and decisions to leave have gone viral on Iranian social media, prompting coverage by Iranian media and debate over financial hardship, burnout and working conditions. The departures appear limited so far, but they are a warning sign of deteriorating conditions in education and healthcare.
The campaign’s visibility comes as Iran’s economic situation worsens. On October 1, the dollar approached 260,000 tomans - 2.6 million rials - on Tehran’s open market. The increase continued despite the central bank’s announcement a day earlier that it planned to supply $2 billion in banknotes, beginning with $1 billion distributed through selected banks and bank-affiliated exchange offices.
The rial’s latest decline has coincided with Washington’s intensified economic pressure campaign and the continuing U.S. naval blockade. The falling rial is further eroding the purchasing power of salaries, as higher costs for imported goods and production inputs feed into prices across the economy. According to the Statistical Center of Iran, consumer prices in Shahrivar, the Iranian month ending in September, were 89.8 percent higher than a year earlier. Prices rose 4.2 percent during that month alone, while twelve-month average inflation reached 73.6 percent.
For teachers and nurses, a nominal salary increase can go along with a declining standard of living. Food, transportation, clothing and other necessities absorb more income, while saving for housing or unexpected expenses becomes increasingly difficult. While public-sector employees generally retain some protection through regular salaries and employment benefits, the hardship is even more severe for people unable to find work or relying on part-time and irregular jobs, who face the same rising prices without a dependable income.
The question raised by the campaign is whether years of training and public service still offer a realistic path to financial security. The economic hardship extends well beyond teachers and nurses, affecting broad sectors of Iranian society.
U.S. sanctions and the blockade are intensifying the economic constraints facing both public-service workers and the institutions employing them. Restrictions on export earnings limit access to foreign currency, while obstacles to banking and transportation can make essential supplies more expensive. Reduced public revenue can also constrain the government’s ability to fund salaries and services. Decisions about how available resources are allocated remain the responsibility of Iranian authorities.
For hospitals, economic pressure affects the affordability of supplies as well as the ability to retain staff. Nurses face rising expenses at home while working in institutions under financial strain. Schools face a similar challenge: continuing to educate depends on employees whose own livelihoods are becoming less secure.
The resignation campaign turns these pressures into a public appeal, with participants speaking on camera to draw attention to an economic crisis that extends beyond their professions. Low compensation, delayed payments, unequal resource allocation and punitive treatment of labor activists are longstanding grievances now unfolding amid deepening economic pressure.
One woman with a decade of experience teaching recalled in Iranian media that her early earnings, though modest, had previously allowed her to save toward major purchases with her husband. Her concern was that the widening gap between income and prices had since made that kind of planning increasingly unrealistic.
Teachers’ representatives argue that the departures reflect accumulated grievances over both livelihoods and the treatment of their profession. In a statement circulated by Iranian media, the Coordinating Council of Iranian Teachers’ Trade Associations described experienced educators leaving jobs to which they remained deeply attached. The council attributed the situation to inadequate wages, educational inequality, excessive bureaucracy and security measures against teachers engaged in labor activism, including dismissal, suspension and detention. It rejected explanations centered on foreign instigation and held the authorities responsible for the conditions driving dissatisfaction.
Education Minister Alireza Kazemi offered a sharply different account on September 30. Speaking to education administrators in Isfahan, he said approximately 650,000 classrooms were functioning with teachers. According to state news agency IRNA, he dismissed the controversy as material circulated by four people whom he said were not teachers.
Kazemi placed the issue within a broader campaign of cognitive and cultural warfare against Iran and urged administrators to prevent such narratives from influencing teachers, students and families. His reported remarks did not include a national tally of resignations. He also acknowledged recruitment constraints. Education authorities, he said, had not recruited 30,000 personnel through one recruitment channel this year and had not received an allocation of 5,000 military-service teachers. Nevertheless, he maintained that the school year had begun smoothly.
In nursing, professional representatives warn that formal resignation statistics capture only part of the workforce problem. Mohammad Sharifi-Moghadam, secretary-general of the Nurses’ House, told Iranian media that temporary employees who decline to renew contracts, or nurses who leave during service placements, may not be recorded as having resigned. Deputy Health Minister for Nursing Abbas Ebadi identified understaffing as a driver of burnout and departures, saying retention depended on financial, professional, organizational and social conditions. He reported that 12,000 nursing recruitment authorizations had been obtained during the previous year, although authorizations do not establish how many nurses were ultimately hired.
Nursing representatives at the same gathering raised low compensation, delayed payments, insecure employment and unequal resource allocation. Their complaints highlight why additional funding must be accompanied by improvements in working conditions and the distribution of healthcare resources.
For patients and students, persistent staff losses threaten the quality and continuity of essential services. When departures exceed replacement, remaining workers absorb more responsibilities. New recruits may replenish headcounts without immediately replacing experienced colleagues’ knowledge.
The immediate importance of the campaign is its warning: people responsible for teaching children and caring for patients are publicly questioning whether they can afford to continue. The falling rial, inflation and external economic restrictions are making longstanding workplace grievances harder to bear. Addressing that pressure requires both relief from the measures constricting Iran’s economy and domestic decisions that make remaining in these professions a sustainable choice.