Women employment on rise in Turkey's urban areas

ANKARA – Anadolu Agency

Many new jobs have been created in the last four years for women in cities. DAILY NEWS photo

Some 1.5 million new jobs have been created in the last four years for women in non-agricultural sectors in urban areas, according to an employment report released by the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV) yesterday.

While some 3.4 million women worked in non-agricultural sectors in June 2009, this number increased to around 4.9 million in the first half of 2013, increasing by 44 percent in the four years, the report said.
This increase was said to be partially caused by some social security incentives for employers who employed women, including the lack of social security premiums from workplaces for women who work for minimum wage, according to the report.

“Some dramatic increase has been seen in women’s employment specifically in the services sector. While there was very slightly in women employment in 2009, women employment increased dramatically in 2010 and 2011, when Turkish economy grew by around 9 percent, and even in 2012, when the economy grew by only around 2.2 percent. Non-agricultural women’s employment reached 4.9 million in June 2013,” the report said.

Some 1.5 million women, around 30 percent of the total figure, however, work unregistered.
 
“Despite this fact, the share of women in non-agricultural employment has increased to 25 from 20 percent for the last four years,” the report said.

Only around 25 percent of those women work in the manufacturing sector, mainly in food and textile industries.

The rise was said to be partially due to several social security incentives for workplaces which employed women.