Turkish government launches new markets to exploit labour

Almost 20% of the working class in Turkey is unemployed, as the ruling Justice and Development Party tries to take advantage of this situation by supporting modern slave markets under the name of "career fairs"
Thursday, 15 March 2018 23:13

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) can no longer conceal the horrific unemployment rate in Turkey. Although the state-owned Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) recently announced that the unemployment rate in Turkey is 10.4%, the real unemployment rate according to research carried out by the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions of Turkey (DİSK) is almost two times more than the official figures claimed by the Turkish government

Trying to think of various ways to reduce the short-term unemployment rate, the AKP government has modernized slave markets under the name of "career fairs" promoting "rented labour" with low wages, and put them at the disposal of capitalist employers.

The first stop of these modern slave markets in March 2018 was Turkey’s southern province of Antalya, also known as "Turkey’s tourism paradise". The fairground, put into the service of capitalists in Antalya, was marketed with a motto of "Jobseekers meet with employers at Career Fair".

AKP GOVERNOR BLAMES LABORERS FOR UNEMPLOYMENT

While many companies seeking new cheap labour ran booths at the fair, thousands of workers visiting the fair in the hope of finding a job laid the AKP’s lies on "unemployment" bare.

The Antalya Governor Münir Karaloğlu, attending the fair, blamed laborers for the increasing unemployment rate in Turkey.

Stating that "People in Turkey always talk about statistics on unemployment," Karaloğlu said "People actually belittle existing jobs because of unemployment. And there are also people who do not have any particular profession. When you ask them 'what do you do?', they say 'I take whatever job I can get.' A person who says this cannot actually do any work."

REAL UNEMPLOYMENT RATE IN TURKEY: 6.1 MILLION UNEMPLOYED

According to monthly research carried out by the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions of Turkey (DİSK), the youth unemployment rate in Turkey is 19.2%; the broadly defined unemployment rate for women is 27%; and the rate of the youth who are neither in education nor employed is 23.1%.

The report underlines that the real number of unemployed people in Turkey is 6.1 million, corresponding to 18.3% by December 2017.