Alarming unemployment figures among university graduates in Turkey

Nearly a quarter of around 3 million unemployed people in Turkey are university graduates, according to official figures that reveal severity of situation Economic growth, which is estimated to have dropped to 2.5 percent in 2014, has also made unemployment climb. The Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜ?K) recently revealed unemployment data for October of last year; official unemployment, seasonally adjusted, came in at 10.6 percent, while non-agricultural unemployment rate was 12.7 percent.

According to TÜ?K, the official number of unemployed people is now 3,095,000. This figure was around 2.5 million for the same month last year. Thus, while 580,000 people have been added to the ranks of the officially unemployed in the last 12 months since October 2013, unemployment has increased 1.4 points.

Numbers climbing

According to TÜ?K data, non-agricultural unemployment is climbing even faster. While the non-agricultural unemployment rate was 10.5 percent in October 2012, in 2013 it climbed to 11.1 percent and then to 12.7 percent in October 2014. Thus, in two years, non-agricultural unemployment climbed 2.2 points. The number of official unemployed has exceeded 3,095,000. The unofficial, uncounted number of unemployed reached 2,457,000. Out of these, 2.4 million have not looked for a job during the past week but they represent a population that says they are ready to work if there is a job opportunity. When these non-counted unemployed are also taken into consideration, then the number of unemployed exceeds 5.5 million, while the real unemployment rate goes up from 10.6 to 17.6 percent, climbing 7 points.

With economic growth dropping in the last quarter compared to the previous quarter, unemployment has climbed; it...