The number of unemployed in Turkey has become 4 million 394 thousand by increasing 92 thousand people in December 2019 compared to the same period of the last year. The unemployment rate has also increased by 0.2 percent within this period, and reached to 13.7 percent, according to the data released by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) on March 10.
In December 2019, the number of people not in the labour force increased by 877 thousand compared to the same period of 2018, reaching 29 million 869 thousand. The number of employed people in this period was only 27 million 658 thousand, TurkStat data indicated.
As the unemployment rate is gradually increasing in the country, people are losing their hope of getting a job in Turkey.
According to the data released by TurkStat, the number of people losing their hope for employment has increased by 40 percent.
The data shows that while the number of people who lost their hope to find a job in the country in December 2018 was 598 thousand, this number increased by 240 thousand in a year and reached 838 thousand in December 2019.
In addition to the rising number of people losing their hope for employment, the number of housewives has also increased by 361 thousand in the same period, the report prepared by TurkStat indicates. Accordingly, 11 million 673 thousand of nearly 30 million people who are not in the labour force are women. TurkStat describes the reason for this number as ‘‘household chores’’ in the report.
While the number of people continuing their education is 4 million 583 thousand, nearly 3 million 900 thousand people are unable to work due to illness or disability, TurkStat report also says.
Furthermore, the number of those who are not seeking a job but available to start working has reached 2 million 468 thousand, increasing by 160 thousand. Since these people are not seeking a job, they are not included in the unemployment rate according to TurkStat.
YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT RATE IS 25 PERCENT
The unemployment rate among the youth aged 15-24 years has reached 25 percent in Turkey, increasing 0.5 percent compared to the same period of the previous year, TurkStat data shows.
While the employment rate has fallen to 31.9 percent, the labour force participation rate realized as 42.5 percent with a 0.5 percent decrease.
25.4 percent of the youth in Turkey is neither in employment nor in education, according to the report.
Source: Labour Force Statistics, December 2019, released on March 10, 2020, Turkstat.gov.tr
UNEMPLOYMENT RATE IN 15-64 AGE GROUP IS 14 PERCENT
TurkStat data also reveals that the unemployment rate for the 15-64 age group is 14.0 percent with 0.3 percent increase, and the non-agricultural unemployment rate reaches 15.9 percent, increasing 0.2 percent compared to the same period of the previous year.
‘‘In this age group, employment rate occurred as 49.3 percent with 0.6 percentage point decrease and labor force participation rate occurred as 57.3 percent with 0.5 percentage point decrease,’’ the report noted.
RATE OF UNREGISTERED EMPLOYMENT IS 32.3 PERCENT
The rate of people working without any social security occurred 32.3 percent, decreasing by 1.1 percent in the period of December 2019 compared to the same period of the previous year.
According to the data, the rate of unregistered employment in the country’s non-agricultural sector has fallen to 21.9 percent, decreasing by 0.8 percent compared to the same period of the previous year.
As Turkey has been experiencing a severe economic crisis along with unemployment rates and high inflation under the Justice and Development Party (AKP)’s neoliberal Islamic rule the Turkish government, which has set its eyes on the rights and gains of the working class to overcome the crisis, attempts to implement a series of anti-labor policies under the name of ‘‘economic reform package’’.
In April 2019, Turkey’s Finance and Treasury Minister and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s son-in-law, Berat Albayrak, had announced an economic reform package, prioritizing particularly the financial sector of the country, including injecting funds into state banks, tax adjustments, pension reforms, and loans to strategic sectors.
All of these so-called ‘‘reforms to improve the economic situation of the country’’ have led to boost capital by more anti-labor policies to save the capital from the economic recession after a currency meltdown resulted in growing bad debts for banks.
The government’s anti-labor implementations under the name of ‘‘economic reforms’’ also included the elimination of severance pay as the rights of the working class, while this elimination benefited the capitalists by giving them the opportunity to dismiss the workers without any financial burden.
Source: Labour Force Statistics, December 2019, released on March 10, 2020, Turkstat.gov.tr
