Turkey: Unemployment rate at 12.9% in November

In October, the unemployment rate in Turkey was realized as 12.9% compared to the same month last year’s 13.3%, with a decrease of 0.4 points. When compared to the previous month, it is seen that the unadjusted unemployment rate increased by 0.2 points. Seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was announced as 12.9%, decreasing by 0.3 compared to the same month of the previous year and unchanged from the previous month. While the unemployment rate among the young population is 25% according to the refined data; Non-farm unemployment stood at 14.9%.

When we look at the comparable periods November 2019 - November 2020, it is seen that there is a 3.3-point decrease in the labor force participation rate between the related periods with adjusted data. The workforce, which was 32 million 564 thousand people in the similar period of 2019, was 31 million 146 thousand people in November 2020. The labor force participation rate decreased from 52.7% to 49.4%. Again, looking at seasonally adjusted data; While the employment rate decreased by 2.6 points compared to the same period of the previous year and became 43.1%, there was a decrease of 24 thousand people in seasonally adjusted employment compared to the previous month. In this period, seasonally adjusted employment increased by 83 thousand in the industrial sector, while it decreased by 62 thousand in the agricultural sector, 6 thousand in the construction sector, and 38 thousand in the service sector, according to economic activity.

During the pandemic period of 2020, which also includes normalization, we observed that the unemployment rate remained in a stable trend along with the measures to protect employment, unpaid leave support and short work allowance. We see a limited increase towards 12.9% in the 3-month unemployment average, which includes the October - November - December period. Breakdowns in unemployment rate; It shows that the closing effect tends to be strongly felt as of that period. As a matter of fact, the seasonal closure and the decrease in the agricultural and service sector indicate a loss of over 1 million in terms of overall employment compared to the previous year (1 million 118 thousand between November 2019 and November 2020 according to the adjusted data). During this period, again, according to the adjusted data, a decrease of 1 million 418 thousand people on labor force is observed on an annual basis. The decrease in the labor force participation rate is one of the factors limiting the increase in the unemployment rate. The reason for this is that those who are not included in the workforce are not considered unemployed in the definition of unemployed by TURKSTAT, and additionally, the condition of being included in the workforce is looking for a job or being ready to start work immediately. Among the current labor market measures, short-time work allowance creates underemployment, unpaid leave support consists of social assistance and actually includes an unemployed segment that is not included in the definition of unemployed because of not working in practice. The monthly increase in November figures explains that it was the period when the closures started to be put into effect with the second wave of the pandemic.

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