STAGNATION IN UNEMPLOYMENT
Seyfettin Gürsel and Melike Kökkızıl
Seasonal adjusted labor market data show that non-agricultural unemployment rate did not change in the period of May from April staying at 13.4 percent. The most important reason behind this result is a significant slowdown in the increase of non-agricultural employment in May compared to April. In that period, significant loss of employment was experienced in construction sector while employment in service sector increased significantly. On the other hand, according to seasonally adjusted labor data, decline both for females and males in non-agricultural unemployment rates continued. Betam’s forecasting model predicts that the non-agricultural unemployment rate will decrease 0.1 points in the period of June 2017 reaching 13.3 percent.