INCREASE IN NON-AGRICULTURAL UNEMPLOYMENT CONTINUES
Seyfettin Gürsel, Gökçe Uysal Kolaşın and Yazgı Genç
Seasonally adjusted labor market data shows that in the period of June 2018 compared to May 2018, non-agricultural unemployment rate increased by 0.2 percentage points and reached 12.8 percent. The employment loses since March 2018 stopped in June 2018 and non-agricultural employment increased by 105 thousand. Sectoral data indicates that employment decreased in construction while it increased in manufacturing and services. The increase in non-agricultural labor force accelerated and non-agricultural labor force reached to 182 thousand. Thus, increase in non-agricultural unemployment continues. Betam’s forecasting model predicts that the non-agricultural unemployment will rise to 12.9 percent in the period of July 2018. In the period of June 2018, the non-agricultural female unemployment rate increased by 0.3 percentage points to 18 percent while non-agricultural male unemployment rate decreased by 0.1 percentage points to 10.4 percent. Thus, the gender gap in non-agricultural unemployment rates have increased.