Turkish union calls for government plan to fight unemployment

A confederation of employers' unions in Turkey warned Wednesday that the country's unemployment rates had hit their highest levels in two decades, saying that more than 750 thousand people had no hope of finding a job at all.

Turkey's national statistics authority put Tuesday the unemployment rate in the country at 14 percent in 2009. TurkStat said number of unemployed people was up to 3,471,000 in 2009, marking an increase of 860,000 over 2008.

"Unemployment has taken its toll on 2009 as the increase in the working age population is almost entirely consumed by the raise in the unemployment rate. The 2009 figures are at their highest in twenty years," Confederation of the Turkish Employers' Unions (TISK) said in a report over latest jobless figures.

The jobless rate hit a record of 16.1 percent in February 2009.

TISK said the increase in the work force had soared to exceed the increase in population in 2009 and it had reached some 943 thousand people, adding that the rise in unemployment in Turkey had overtaken the global average as well as averages of all country groupings.

Prior to a global economic recession, the number of the jobless in Turkey was 2,376 thousand or 10.3 percent in 2007. In 2008, the rate was 11 percent, and the number of jobless people grew to some 3.47 million, marking a 46.1 increase in 2009.

TISK urged the government to draft immediately a national employment program to fight off unemployment.


/World Bulletin/