Union: Official Figures Don't Reflect Reality, Six Million Lost Their Jobs During Pandemic

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The official unemployment figures announced yesterday (June 10) don't reflect the real number of job losses amid the coronavirus pandemic due to the calculation methods, the DİSK-AR, the research center of the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions of Turkey has stated in a report.

Recalculating the number of the unemployed used the International Labor Organization's (ILO) methods, the union has found that as many as six million people have become unemployed during the pandemic.

According to the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat), the unemployment rate decreased by 0.9 percent in March to 13.2 percent. Turkey confirmed its first Covid-19 case on March 11 and swiftly introduced measures after that, including closing schools, cafes and bars and canceling mass events.

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"The TurkStat reducing the unemployment rate despite the huge loss in employment is totally a technical matter," the DİSK-AR said. "It is not impossible to the real extent of the loss of employment and jobs."

The TurkStat counts those who are seeking jobs within the four weeks before the "reference week" as unemployed, the union explained. However, it said, millions of employees were not included among the unemployed despite not working because they received either short-time work allowance or unpaid leave allowance.

Out of three-and-a-half million workers who have applied for the short-time work allowance, the applications of one million have been accepted, it said.

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Moreover, those working on their own behalf or informally were also not considered as unemployed because they did not seek jobs due to the pandemic, according to the DİSK-AR report.

"According to TURKSTAT data, the labor force has decreased by 2 million 235 thousand in the last year and has decreased from 32 million 339 thousand to 30 million 104 thousand. Employment has declined by 1 million 662 thousand since March 2019, from 27 million 795 thousand to 26 million 133 thousand. Those in employment and at work decreased by 4 million 502 thousand people, from 27 million to 22 million 505 thousand. The number of people who are not at work has increased by 2 million 840 thousand in the last year."

Recalculation using ILO methods

"We took March 2019 as the basis while using ILO's calculation method. We calculated the total working time by multiplying the number of people at work on this date by the weekly average actual working time. We did the same for March 2020. Thus, by dividing the total loss in working time and total labor loss to 45 hours of work per week, we found the equivalent full-time employment loss."

Accordingly, the number of "equivalent job losses" due to the pandemic was five-and-a-half million. The number of unemployed according to the broad definition increased by six million to nearly 13.4 million, the report said.

The rate of broad unemployment became 39 percent after the pandemic, the DİSK-AR stated.

According to the narrow definition of unemployment by the TurkStat, the number of unemployed persons aged 15 years old was 3.9 million in March. (VK)