Turkey sees highest broadly defined unemployment rate in last 3 years in Q2: TurkStat – Turkish Minute

Turkey’s broadly defined unemployment rate rose to 27.3 percent in the second quarter of 2024 with a 2.2 percent increase compared to the previous quarter, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported on Monday, citing official figures from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat).

TurkStat released its “Labour Force Statistics, Quarter II: April-June, 2024” report on Monday.

According to the data, the number of narrowly defined unemployed people, which refers to individuals aged 15 and above who were not employed during the reference period, actively searched for a job through at least one job-seeking channel in the past four weeks and were ready to start work within the next two weeks, increased by 23,000 to 3.1 million in the second quarter of 2024 compared to the first quarter, while the narrowly defined unemployment rate remained 8.8 percent.

Broadly defined unemployment, which also includes those who have lost hope of finding a job, are not actively seeking employment but are ready to work, seasonal workers and those with time-related underemployment, increased by 2.2 percent to 27.3 percent in the second quarter of the year compared to the first, reaching its highest level since the first quarter of 2021.

The number of employed persons increased by 205,000 to 32.661 million in the April-May-June period of 2024 compared to the previous quarter. Employment stood at 49.6 percent, demonstrating a 0.2 percent increase. It was 67 percent among men and 32.5 percent among women.

The TurkStat data also showed the labor force participation rate increased to 54.4 percent in the same period, with a 0.3 percent increase. It was 72.3 percent among men and 36.8 percent among women.

 The lowest annual unemployment rate in the past decade was in 2013, when it stood at 8.9 percent, while the highest was in 2019 at 13.7 percent. It was recorded at 9.4 percent in 2023.

Although TurkStat data paint a positive picture of the unemployment rate in general, the institution’s statistics are met with skepticism. It faces frequent accusations of masking the real unemployment and inflation rates in order to hide the economic deterioration in the country.