Temporary jobs account for more unemployment

ANKARA - Anatolia News Agency

An employee at a facility in the Mediterranean destination of Antalya entertains a large group of tourists. Tourism is one of the major fields of temporary employment in Turkey. DHA photo

Temporary jobs have increasingly become a major cause of unemployment in Turkey, while contract terminations have steadily declined in the last three years, data from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) shows.

Some 29.9 percent of those unemployed last year were left without jobs due to the “ending of a temporary job,” according to data compiled by the Anatolia news agency. This was followed by 18.2 percent of the total unemployed, who had “quit their job of their own accord.”

The rate of unemployed who lost their jobs due to the ending of a temporary job was 27.1 percent in 2009, 29.6 percent in 2010, and 29.9 percent last year, according to TÜİK data. Those who left their jobs of their own accord constituted 18.2 percent, putting it in second place in the list of causes of unemployment last year. The rate was 14.4 percent in 2009.

Some 14.5 percent of the unemployed last year lost their jobs due to contract termination. But the rate has declined 9.6 points over the last three years. The figure was 24.1 percent in 2009, and 17.5 percent in 2010.

The reasons for unemployment according to TUİK include “the ending of a temporary job, lay-offs, the closure of workplace, quitting a job voluntarily, working as a family worker without a wage, and first-time job seekers.”

Overall unemployment

Overall unemployment in Turkey declined to 9.9 percent of the workforce in March, according to the latest data disclosed by TÜİK.

Turkey’s rate of youth unemployment has fallen to 17.4 percent in 2012, Turkey’s Labor and Social Security Minister Faruk Çelik recently said.

Between 2009 and 2011, the share of all unemployed men who lost their jobs due to “contract termination” dropped to 16.4 percent from 26.3 percent. The figure dropped to 10.7 percent from 18.5 percent among women in the same period. Those who were left without jobs due to “workplace closure or bankruptcy” rose to 18.06 percent from 14.3 percent between 2009 and 2011.
The share of family workers without a wage was 0.7 percent in 2009, 0.6 percent in 2010 and 0.5 percent in 2011. The share of first-time job seekers among the total unemployed in the same period rose to 11.6 percent from 10.4 percent.

Other causes of unemployment, such as retirement, return from military service, and education constituted 18.06 percent of the total number of unemployed in 2011, up from 14.3 percent in 2009.