An independent study by a labour organisation refutes TurkStat’s low figure. Unemployment among women is around 33.7 per cent against 23.9 per cent for men. Things are even worse for young people with 42.4 per cent who are jobless. For Turkish authorities, only those actively seeking work can be considered unemployed.
Istanbul (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Turkey’s actual unemployment is double the official figure provided by the Turkish authorities, this according to an independent study by the Research Centre of the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions of Turkey (DİSK-AR).
The study comes in the wake of a report recently released by TurkStat, Turkey’s statistical agency, which put the number of unemployed at 4.2 million (as of May 2021).
In fact, the labour organisation uses a broader notion of workforce and counted 9.7 million unemployed, with young people and women affected the most. This is up from 6.7 million in May 2019.
The DİSK-AR’s Report on the Unemployment and Employment Outlook included not only people looking for work, but all people of working age currently excluded from the market, rejecting TurkStat data.
Female unemployment stood at 33.7 per cent, compared to 23.9 per cent for men. The situation for people aged 15 to 24 is even worse. The unemployment rate for this age group is 42.4 per cent. According to TurkStat it is instead at 24 per cent.
The data provided by government agency are based on a narrow definition of unemployment. They do not include people who lost hope of finding a job, those who are not looking for a job but are ready to work, and those who are deemed employed, despite not working during the pandemic.
“Even though there has been a relative drop in the number of broad unemployment when compared to its peak in May 2020 (during the first COVID-19 wave), there has still been an increase of 3 million 283 thousand people since May 2019," the report says.