‘Unemployment in Turkey now worse than the first months of pandemic’

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The Research Center of the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions of Turkey (DİSK-AR) has released its "Unemployment and Employment Outlook in April 2021 Report", shortly after the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) shared the labor force statistics yesterday (June 10).

Raising concerns that unemployment is worse than it was in the first months of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the DİSK-AR report has shown that only 18.8 of the 63.5 million people in the working age were in registered full-time employment in April 2021.

According to the DİSK-AR report, only 16 out of every 100 women are in registered and full-time employment in Turkey.

The DİSK has underlined that the Household Labor Force Survey, which the TurkStat prepares based on a recently adopted methodology and was announced for April 2021 yesterday, has a limited scope.

CLICK - 4.5 million people unemployed, according to state agency

'Broad unemployment: 27.4 percent'

Referring to the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate announced by the TurkStat as 13.9 percent for April 2021, the DİSK-AR report has indicated that this official figure is narrowly defined, adding that the broad unemployment rate in Turkey is 27.4 percent.

Drawing attention to the fact that the gap between the narrow and broad unemployment rate has increased to 13.5 percentage points, the DİSK-AR has explained this increasing gap by referring to the lay-off ban introduced in Turkey amid the pandemic. According to the report, the lay-off ban has kept the narrow-defined unemployment rate at a limited level and decreased the time spent at work. "That being the case, while narrow-defined unemployment has remained limited, broad unemployment has skyrocketed," the DİSK has underlined further.

'Broad unemployment: 9 million 837 thousand'

The DİSK has noted that it used a new alternative method in calculating unemployment rate, namely the "Registered and Full-Time Employment".

"According to our calculations based on the TurkStat data, the number of seasonally adjusted broad unemployment was 9 million 873 thousand in April 2021. Last April, this number was 9 million 187 thousand, which marked an annual increase of 650 thousand people."

In its recent labor force statistics, the TurkStat has announced the number of unemployed people in Turkey as 4 million 511 thousand.

'Women's unemployment is on top of the list'

According to the DİSK-AR, the broad unemployment rate among women was 33.4 percent in April. It has raised concerns that women's unemployment is much higher in all types of unemployment.

"In order to increase women's employment and to decrease unemployment, the sexist practices prevalent in the labor market must be ended and the state must offer free, widespread and quality domestic care services, thereby taking this burden from women" the DİSK-AR has indicated.

At the end of its report, the confederation has listed a series of recommendations to fight unemployment, such as a definite ban on lay-offs during the COVID-19 pandemic, an end to arbitrary dismissals, a change in the conditions for benefiting from unemployment fund payments and the amount of money paid and an end to the misuse of Unemployment Insurance Fund. (KÖ/SD)