Is unemployment rate 9.8 or 18.6 pct?

According to TÜİK, the "official" number of unemployed Turks has increased by 207,000 and has reached 2.439 million. Interesting enough, the number of families the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, is distributing free coal, rice, sugar and such assistance to is reported to be slightly over two million. What a social state! Rather than trying to generate employment opportunities, our government is just opting to distribute donations as a remedy to rising poverty… Anyhow, to return to our subject, according to TÜİK, without including the latest sackings because of the crisis - for example some 3,000 dock workers at Tuzla, or some 1,000 personnel by a leading Turkish bank, or thousands of people who have become unemployed as a result of closure because of the crisis of some 500 companies in the last week - the number of "official" unemployed Turks has reached 2.349 million and the unemployment rate has reached 9.8 percent. On the other hand, again according to official figures, some 6.2 percent of the 10.058 million Turks who are not listed in the "active working population" were either sacked from work or their workplaces were closed. If those who have given up hopes of finding an employment opportunity - and therefore who do not apply to the employment office and thus are not included in the unemployment data-as well as those who worked less than 40 hours in total over the past three months and thus considered in the statistics as "incomplete employment" are to be considered in the official statistics as well, than the rate of unemployment in the country becomes 18.6 percent, rather than the 9.8 reported by TÜİK.

And, of course, in these statistics, of the overall 70 million Turks, the working population is being considered to be only around 25 million. That is, according to our statistical department and the official records it prepares, only one in three Turks are included in the "active working population." Rural Turkey and the farming population are largely ignored in the statistics, yet according to TÜİK the rate of unemployment after the farming sector was deduced has become 12.7 percent, a 1.1 percent sharp increase compared to the corresponding period in 2007 when the rate was 11.6 percent. Still, as employment statistics in the agriculture sector are so deficient and particularly rural women are so much discriminated against, it is rather difficult to vouch for the accuracy of these figures. Furthermore, according to the statistics, in urban Turkey one in every four of young Turks (23 percent) is unemployed.

Current situation far more bitter
As is stressed above, even though they are deficient, all these figures provide a blurred snapshot of Turkey at the end of August. A snapshot taken today would reflect even far bitter realities. Meetings are underway at several big companies nowadays. Top executives are pondering ways of cutting costs and keeping their companies afloat despite the global economic crisis hurricane. Executives are trying to find ways of cutting costs without laying off a high number of their personnel. Still, particularly the middle sized and small enterprises are facing some acute problems and most of them are just trying to brave the worsening conditions hoping that the government will come up with a comprehensive economic measures package to salvage the Turkish economy. Precious months were wasted by the government which until recently was more busy preparing for the upcoming local elections and thus refusing a new standby deal with the International Monetary Fund which would restrict populist applications aimed at buying votes. Better late than never, one would say, seeing the government nowadays trying to finish off talks with IMF on a new agreement. But, the data released by TÜİK underscores how right the leading businessmen were in appealing to the government to take measures against the approaching crisis back in early September...