Who are the secret unemployed?

of those who were not THE NUMBER OF considered unemployed as they did not look for jobs increased by 975,000 people between February and March. I believe at least 900,000 to one million of these ‘secretly’ unemployed people are included in the TurkStat category.

However, the real ‘secretly’ unemployed people due to the outbreak are those who are unemployed even though they appear employed. The monthly increase in this group is over 1.9 million people. In fact, on a seasonal basis, there was a 200,000-300,000 decrease during the March period.

Analyzing the monthly and annual increases in the number of those aren’t working even though they are considered employed would give us a clear insight as to how much the coronavirus crisis impacted each category. Here are the key findings from this analysis:

►The coronavirus crisis hit men and women equally in employment. The number of those who are not working even though they are considered employed increased by 112 percent and 114 percent for men and women, respectively.

►Two-thirds of the ‘secretly’ unemployed people are in the services sector. 67 percent of those who are not working even though they are considered employed are from the services sector.

►However, this doesn’t mean that those who are employed in the industry sector have not been hit by the pandemic. The number of those who are not working even though they are considered employed increased by 134 percent in the services sector; it rose by 274 percent in industry.