Turkish Statistical Institute’s (TurkStat) Household Labor Force Survey (HLFS) for the 2nd quarter of 2024 was published on August 19, 2024.
As is known, TurkStat has been releasing monthly and quarterly data separately since March 2021. While monthly data is more limited, quarterly data has a broader scope.
On the other hand, since quarterly data cover three months, quarterly unemployment and employment data differ from monthly data.
While the official employment rate announced by TURKSTAT was 49.6 percent in the 2nd quarter of 2024, the Registered Full-Time Employment (FTE) rate calculated by DİSK-AR based on TURKSTAT data was 34.6 percent.
While the official employment rate for women was 32.5 percent, the FTE rate was 20 percent, and while the official employment rate for men was announced as 67 percent, the FTE rate was calculated as 49.5 percent.
According to the FTE calculation made by DİSK-AR, only 22.8 million of the 65.9 million people of working age (15+ years) are working within the scope of registered full-time employment (FTE).
Only 6.7 million of 33.3 million working-age women are in formal and full-time employment (FTE), while 16.1 million of 32.6 million working-age men are in formal and full-time employment.
According to TurkStat’s quarterly data for the 2nd quarter of 2024, both narrow- and broad-defined unemployment breakdown by gender shows that unemployment is much higher among women.
In the second quarter of 2024, narrow-defined unemployment was 7.3 percent for men and 11.7 percent for women. The broad-defined unemployment rate (idle labor force) was 22.8 percent for men and 35 percent for women.
It is known that youth unemployment rates are higher than general unemployment rates. Since the AKP came to power in the third quarter of 2002, the broadly defined youth unemployment rate has increased from 26 percent to more than 36 percent. During the AKP period, broadly defined youth unemployment increased by 10.1 points. In the second quarter of 2024, broad-defined unemployment continues to be higher among young women.
While narrow-defined unemployment rate for men aged 15-24 was 13.6 percent and broad-defined unemployment rate was 33 percent, narrow-defined unemployment rate for young women aged 15-24 was 20.2 percent and broad-defined unemployment rate was 45.7 percent.