TEHRAN Amid a furore over economic woes, some 60 laid-off factory workers on Wednesday gathered in front of the Iranian Chamber of Commerce to protest their expulsion.

The protestors say the darougar company has fired them and employed 100 others from a contractual company instead.

"We have not been paid for over three months and laid off. That is the case while some of those fired were awarded in March!" Monzer Piri, a protestor, told IRNA.

He criticized the officials with the Labor Ministry for not taking their issue into account.

Over the past month, the public anger over economic problems is rising and laborers have been taking to streets to protest mass layoffs and defaults on payments by employers.

On Sunday, some 250 protesting laborers from a clothing and a shoe factory clashed with police in front of the Parliament (Majlis) leaving eight injured. They said they have not been paid for months.

They denounced the "incompetence" of their factory's management. Iran is battling unemployment of around 15 percent, according to official statistics, while unofficial estimates put the percentage higher. Labor protests have stepped up over the past few months.

Some 30 million of Iran's 62-million-strong population are under the age of 25, and an estimated one million are ready to enter the job market every year.

Industrial workers, who represent some 25 percent of the nations' active workforce, and farmers count as the main victims of the sluggish economy. Tea and rice growers regularly organize protests in the hope of attracting the attention of officials.