Turkish unemployment rising for 26 consecutive months: TOBB

Erdinç Çelikkan - ANKARA

In its latest report on employment trends, the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey’s (TOBB) ETÜ Social Policies Research Center (SPM) has addressed the 26 consecutive months of rising unemployment in the country. 

The center forecasted the unemployment rate to remain at above 11 percent in February 2015, for which the official data will be announced on May 15. 

Around 5.4 million people will be announced unemployed for the period, according to the report, which was prepared by SPM Director Serdar Sayan and a team of researchers. 

The January 2015 rate was announced at 11.3 percent, the highest in four years. The employment rate also decreased in the same month by 0.4 points to 44.3 percent, the lowest employment rate in the last seven months. 

The number of jobless people saw a rise of 16.2 percent in the year up to February 2015, said the report. 

“The non-agricultural unemployment rate increased to 13.4 percent in January 2015 from 12.1 percent in the same period of 2014,” added the report. 

The total workforce decreased to 28.7 million people in January 2015, a 0.3 percent decline from December 2014, according to the report. 

“Some 1.4 million people joined the workforce in the one-year period from January 2014 to the same month of 2015, an increase of 5.3 percent,” the report added.