Turkish gov't working on second employment package - minister

Hurriyet Daily News with wires

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"This package covers ways to create jobs and bring down unemployment by the help of public service and business start-up programs and also aims to better operate provincial committees on employment and vocational education," Yilmaz was quoted by Anatolian Agency as saying in response to a parliamentary question motion.

Turkey unveiled earlier this month a long-awaited incentives package aimed at boosting employment and attracting greenfield investments. The incentives include cutting corporate taxes to as low as 2 percent for companies investing in Turkey's poorer eastern and southeastern provinces, lowering labor costs and providing guarantees for loans.

Yilmaz said more than 11,000 companies closed in the first three months of this year; this figure was around than 17,000 in 2008.

"2008 was a tough year for companies," the Turkish minister said. 

Yilmaz also said measures taken against the global crisis amounted to 8.6 billion TL ($5.5 billion) in 2008, and estimated the amount of measures would reach 30 billion TL ($19.2 billion) in 2009 and 15 billion TL ($9.6 billion) in 2010, the state-run Anatolian Agency reported.

Turkey's unemployment rate jumped to 15.8 percent in March when compared with the same period last year, bringing the number of jobless to 3,776,000.

Analysts believe Turkey entered a recession in 2009 after a 6.2-percent contraction in the last quarter of 2008.

Central Bank governor Durmus Yilmaz has said gross domestic product, or GDP, could post a double-digit contraction in the first quarter of 2009 before returning to growth in the last quarter.

In April, the government revised a 4.0-percent GDP expansion target for 2009 and said the economy would contract 3.6 percent. The International Monetary Fund has said it expects the Turkish economy to contract 5.1 percent in 2009.