Duvar English
According to the Turkish Statistical Institute’s (TÜİK) detailed labor force data for the July-August-September period, the narrowly defined numbers of unemployed decreased by 20,000 from the previous quarter, reaching 3.1 million. In contrast, the broadly defined number of unemployed climbed to 10.66 million.
The number of people outside the labor force in Turkey has surpassed 29 million, including 2.17 million who have lost hope of finding a job. Of these who lost their hope, 31% were aged between 15 and 29.
Additionally, TÜİK reported that 1.9 million people were not actively seeking employment but would work if an opportunity arose.
The proportion of young people neither in education nor employment has reached a record high in Turkey, with 26.3% of individuals aged 15-24 not engaged in either education or work. This was the highest rate since the first labor force survey in 2021, totaling 3.07 million youths.
Among university graduates in this age group, 36.3% of the 1.46 million were neither in education nor employment. The long duration of job searching has become a psychological struggle, with TÜİK data revealing that about 20% of the unemployed have been looking for work for over a year. Many of these individuals eventually gave up on job hunting altogether.
In the third quarter of 2024, TÜİK reported the official employment rate at 49.6%, while Research Center of the Confederation of Revolutionary Trade Unions of Turkey (DİSK-AR), using TÜİK data, calculated the employment rate at 34.5%.
For women, the official employment rate stands at 32.4%, but the union’s rate was just 19.6%. In contrast, for men, the official employment rate was 67.2%, with the union’s rate at 49.6%.
DİSK-AR’s calculations revealed that, out of Turkey’s working-age population of 65.9 million, only 22.7 million were employed in registered, full-time jobs. Among the 33.3 million women of working age, just 6.5 million held such positions, while 16.2 million of the 32.6 million working-age men were employed full-time and registered.
