UNEMPLOYMENT DECLINED DUE TO AN INCREASE IN AGRICULTURAL EMPLOYMENT

Seyfettin Gürsel and Arda Aktaş

According to the labor market statistics released by TurkStat on 15 March, non-agricultural employment has increased by 371 thousand whereas non-agricultural labor force has risen by 348 thousand. As a consequence, non-agricultural unemployment has increased by 23 thousand and the non-agricultural unemployment rate decreased to16.6 percent in December 2009 from 16.8 percent in December 2008. Figure 1 depicts the year-on-year differences in certain labor market statistics.

Since the first increase in October 2009 after 9 months of successive falls, non-agricultural employment is recovering. In December 2009, non-agricultural employment level reached 16,307 thousand. The increase in the non-agricultural employment almost offsets the increase in labor force and the increase in unemployment is limited to 23 thousand (Figure 1).

doc. ResearchBrief066

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