Quarterly Labor Market Outlook: 2022Q2

CONFOUNDING RISE IN EMPLOYMENT

Seyfettin Gürsel, Hamza Mutluay, Mehmet Cem Şahin

According to the seasonally adjusted data, the number of employed persons showed a strong increase of 765 thousand compared to the previous quarter and rose to 30 million 775 thousand in 2022 Q2, while the unemployment rate decreased from 11% to 10.6%. QoQ employment growth was 2.5%, an extremely high increase. GDP growth from Q1 to Q2 2022 has not yet been announced.  Even if the official QoQ growth rate turns to be higher than Betam’s forecast of 1.1%, it is not likely to be high enough to explain the 2.5% job growth.

Seasonally adjusted sectoral employment data reveals that employment increased in all four sectors. The manufacturing sector witnessed the highest increase, with a quarterly employment growth rate of 3.3% (217 thousand). However, the QoQ increase in the seasonally adjusted industrial production index was 1.1%. The 3.3% increase in employment is above the employment creation capacity of the growth in manufacturing. The increase in1 employment in the services sector is 393 thousand and the rate of increase is 2.3%.

The seasonally adjusted youth unemployment rate (ages 15-24) increased by 0.1 pp to 26.3 % for females, while it decreased by 0.8 points to 17.1 % for males. The gender gap in unemployment rates for young females and males is 9.2 pp.

According to the seasonally unadjusted data, the general unemployment rate decreased in all education levels compared to the previous quarter. The highest decrease in unemployment rates was recorded in the “Vocational high school” group.  In the “higher education” group, while the male unemployment rate decreased by 1.5 pp to 7.9%, the female unemployment rate edged down to 14% with a slight decrease of 0.1 pp.

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