By Pooya Firouzi & Morteza Soltanpour Abyaneh

Preserving specialized human capital: Lessons from South Korea for Iran’s economic recovery

TEHRAN– Facing post-war conditions and large-scale economic reconstruction requires the definitive protection of a country's most critical asset: "specialized human capital." In the face of major economic shocks and structural demand declines, the traditional and passive approach of governments often focuses on paying "unemployment benefits" after mass layoffs have occurred. This strategy not only imposes a heavy financial burden on the public budget but also leads to the waste of organizational skills, a decline in the national employer brand, and triple the cost of rehiring during boom periods.