Turkey Unemployment December 2007

Turkey's unemployment rate increased by 0.1 percentage points in December 2007 over the same period last year, rising to 10.6 percent, while the non-agricultural unemployment rate was 13 percent, according to the latest data released by the Turkish Statistical Office, Turkstat.

The latest Household Labor Survey by the Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat) has shown that the unemployment rate in urban areas increased to 12.2 percent in December 2007, up by 0.3 percentage points over the same month last year, whereas in rural areas it increased to 8.1 percent, a 0.6 percentage point increase over the same period last year.
The non-agricultural unemployment rate was down by 0.3 percentage points to 13 percent. TurkStat's figures showed that 74.9 percent of those who were unemployed in December 2007 were male. The figures indicated that 57.8 percent of the unemployed had a below-high-school education level, 27.4 percent had been seeking jobs for one year or more, 32.5 percent were seeking jobs through "their acquaintances." Furthermore, 83.7 percent of them, 2.04 million people, had worked previously and, among those who were employed previously, 46.2 percent were employed in services, 23.2 percent in industry, 19.7 percent were in construction and the remaining 10.9 percent were in agriculture.

According to the figures, the working age population increased by 763,000 in December 2007 compared to the same period of the previous year. While the non-institutional civilian population increased by 756,000 and has reached 69.25 million persons, the non-institutional working age civilian population increased by 763,000, a total of 49.58 million.

The number of employed people decreased by 315,000 compared to the same period the previous year, totaling 20.44 million. The figures also shoed that the agricultural employment decreased by 508,000 and the non-agricultural employment increased by 193,000 in December 2007.

Of those who were employed in December 2007, 24 percent were employed in agriculture, 21 percent in industry, 5.5 percent in construction and 49.5 percent in the services sector. Of the people who were employed in this period, 75.3 percent were male, 60.5 percent had a below-high-school education level and 59.9 percent were regular or part-time employees, whereas 27.8 percent were self-employed or employers, and the remaining 12.3 percent were unpaid family workers. Other facts about this group include: 59.4 percent worked in establishments consisting of 1 to 9 employees, 2.5 percent had an additional job, 3 percent were seeking jobs either to replace their current job or to augment their existing job and 90.2 percent of regular employees were working in permanent jobs.

For the survey, a total of 37,385 sample households, 26,391 of which were from urban areas and 10,994 of which were from rural areas, were used. Of these, 31,850 households were interviewed and non-response forms were filed for various reasons for 5,535 households. In December 2007, the non-response rate was 13.3 percent in rural areas, 13.8 percent in urban areas and 13.7 percent for overall Turkey.