Microeconomics

Turkey's retail sales volume with constant prices fell 0.8% year-on-year in June, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) announced on Aug. 14. 

"In the same month food, drinks and tobacco sales increased by 3.0%," TÜİK said.

Excluding automotive fuel, non-food sales dropped 2.8%, while automotive fuel sales slipped 0.9% over the same period.

The expiration of a $600 weekly jobless supplement at the end of July likely contributed to the decline in claims reported by the Labor Department on Thursday. Reports from payroll scheduling and workforce management firms suggested a decline in employment in early August due to the spread of new COVID-19 cases across the United States.

Turkey's unemployment rate dropped to 13.2% in March, down 0.9 percentage point compared to the same month last year, the country's statistical authority announced on June 10.

The Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) said the number of unemployed persons age 15 and over slipped 573,000 year-on-year to 3.97 million in the month.

Property owners have serious concerns about the level of the compensation they will get for their revenues lost to the 40% rent cuts instructed by the government in favor of the companies and employees hurt by the pandemic. They also want to know how, precisely, they will be compensated.

The consequences of the coronavirus pandemic on the labor market are now obvious, as data from the Manpower Organization (OAED) showed that the number of registered unemployed rose in April by 211,526 or 21.73% from the same month in 2019.

Greece remains the European country with the highest burden on households regarding home expenditure in proportional terms, with its rate at four times the European Union average.

Bars and restaurants will have more outdoor space on sidewalks according to a bill that will be submitted to Parliament on Monday that also slashes municipal fees for catering business but also introduces strict fines. 

As part of efforts to boost businesses, which have already taken a strong hit from the coronavirus pandemic, while also helping the unemployed, whose numbers are expected to rise amid the new crisis, the government is planning to partially subsidize wages lost by employees whose full-time contracts have been reduced to part-time while introducing a coupon scheme as a cash incentive for employer

The rate of unemployment dropped last year to 3.9 pct, from 4.2 pct in 2018, and unemployment affected to a greater degree the graduates of lower and medium education, for whom the unemployment rate stood at 6.3 pct and 4 pct, respectively according to the National Institute for Statistics (INS) figures published on Wednesday.

Some 232,000 Turkish businesses affected by the coronavirus economic fallout have made applications to the government for short-time working payments to their 2.7 million employees between March 30 and April 16, according to Family, Labor and Social Services Minister Zehra Zümrüt Selçuk.