Jobless rate falls sharply, employment improving in Turkey

Turkey’s strong growth rate this year sent the unemployment rate into a downward spin in April, reaching a one digit rate for the first time in the last 33 months, according to official data published on Friday.

The strong growth resulted in an employment record – 23.97 million people – in the same month, the highest employment figure ever recorded in Turkey.

The level of unemployment fell to 9.9 percent, compared to 10.8 percent in March 2011 and 12 percent in April 2010. Such a level marked pre-crisis levels, recording the lowest jobless rate in Turkey in the last 33 months or since the global recession began. The number of jobless in the country during April decreased by 434,000 people, reaching a level of 2.63 million, compared to 3.07 million in April 2010. The employment rate also rose to 44.9 percent, compared to the 43 percent it was in the same period last year.

“The Central Bank always refers to developments in the labor market in its money policy reports. ... It might not be right to make an assessment on the economy’s heating. However, the fall of jobless rates to pre-crisis levels might be interpreted as an indicator of strong economic growth in the country,” Fatih Keresteci, HSBC’s chief economist wrote in a note to investors Friday.

“The 11 percent first quarter growth had its biggest impact on jobless rates,” Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek said Friday in an Ankara press meeting where he revealed budget figures. The unemployment rate dropped to a level less than 10 percent, and he projected that this downward trend in jobless rates would continue in the coming months as well.

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate, on the other hand, remained almost stable, at a 10 percent level rate in April, marking only a 0.1 percentage point increase compared to the previous month.

Non-agriculture unemployment rate and unemployment among young population continued to decline to rates of 12.5 and 17.9 percent, recording month-on-month declines of about 1 and 1.4 percentage points, respectively.

 “We believe that employment conditions fully recovered from the global financial crisis, improvement continues,” Özgür Altuğ, the chief economist at BGC Partners, said in a note Friday. Altuğ, however, said that “the improvement speed [in employment] slowed down slightly,” a reference to the year-on-year improvement pace in employment by 17.5 percent, which was slightly slower compared to previous months.

The non-agriculture labor force has increased by 648,000, or 3.3 percent, in April compared to the same month last year, whereas the non-agriculture employment increased by 1.04 million, or 6.2 percent, reaching a level of 17.92 million in April this year, compared to April 2010.


/Hurriyet Daily News/