‘10 Times Increase in Number of Unemployed University Graduates in 15 Years’

* Photo: AA

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The Republican People's Party (CHP) has published a report entitled "Youth Report: Unemployed, Hopeless and Without a Future".

Prepared by Deniz Demir, the Principal Advisor to the CHP Chair, the report has shown that the number of unemployed university graduates, which was 97 thousand 545 in 2004, has increased to 1 million 340 thousand in 2019. The report has emphasized that 6 million young people working and studying in Turkey are raised as a "lost generation".

As reported by Mahmut Lıcalı from daily Cumhuriyet, some highlights from the Youth Report of the CHP are as follows:

26 out of every 100 BA graduates are unemployed

* 26 out of every 100 university graduates in Turkey are unemployed. This rate is rising apace as the number of university graduates are increasing and job opportunities continue shrinking.

* According to the Turkish Employment Agency (İŞKUR), while the number of unemployed university graduates was 97 thousand 545 in 2004, this figure has increased to 1 million 340 thousand in 2019.

* In other words, the number of unemployed university graduates has increased by over 10 times in the last 15 years.

* In the same period, the rate of unemployed high school graduates has fallen from 47 percent to 25 percent. Taken together, these figures have suggested that university education "postpones unemployment".

CLICK - Youth Unemployment on the Rise in 2 Countries in Europe, One of Them Turkey

They look for solutions abroad

* There are 20 million people at the ages of 15-29 in Turkey. While 5.5 million of them are students and 6 million are workers, 2.5 million both work and study and 6 million neither works, nor studies. In other words, 6 million young people in Turkey are raised as a "lost generation". Some of these "lost" young people have stopped looking for a job as they have lost hope. In terms of absence at school, Turkey ranks sixth among 53 countries.

* Surveys conducted among people between the ages of 8 and 34 have shown that 70 to 90 percent of them say that they would like to live abroad.

What do TurkStat and DİSK-AR figures say?

According to the latest labor force statistics released by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) for July 2019, the number of unemployed aged 15 years and older has increased by 1 million 65 thousand people in comparison with July 2018 and reached 4 million 596 thousand. 

The TurkStat statistics have shown that youth unemployment rate including people aged 15-24 has been 27.1 percent with 7.2 percentage point increase. The Research Center of Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions of Turkey (DİSK-AR) has announced this figure as 27.3 percent. (TP/SD)