Hiding crisis: Turkey's Social Security Institution does not announce number of insured people

The monthly data of the number of insured people used to see the unemployment data has been hidden by Turkey's Social Security Institution (SSI) since December 2018
Thursday, 30 May 2019 13:49

According to Birgün daily, although TURKSTAT regularly publishes the results of the Household Labor Force Survey, there have recently been delays in the disclosure of the Turkish Employment Agency (İŞKUR) and especially SSI’s data.

SSI has not announced its monthly insured number statistics since December 2018. This means not a single data of 2019 was shared with the public so far. İŞKUR had shared its February 2019 data for a short time on the official website but later removed it.

SSI is still not sharing data in a period of important developments and discussions about unemployment in Turkey.

The main opposition CHP's İzmir deputy Murat Bakan gave a written question to be answered by the Family, Labor, and Social Services Minister Zehra Zümrüt Selim. Bakan’s application has been put on hold due to “correspondence/evaluation process” by the Ministry.

It had been revealed in recent months in the Unemployment and Employment Report prepared by DİSK-AR that the number of unemployed people has reached 7 million 552 thousand, hitting a number all-time high. According to the report, the number of employed people decreased to 2.2 million.

According to another report released this month by the CHP on the economic situation, the real number of unemployed in Turkey has reached 8 million 475 thousand. TURKSTAT figures only show 4 million 730 thousand and other official figures show even lower figures.