2017 unemployment rate 11 percent

The unemployment rate was 10.4 percent in December. Compared with the same month in 2016, we see that a significant decline was achieved, down from 12.7percent. The unemployment rate in December is lower than the average between 2008-2016 –10.9 percent.

The unemployment rate was still unable to decline below the 2016 annual rate, also 10.9 percent, despite being below the 2016 average in the second half of last year. The figure for the whole of 2017 has not been released yet though. TurkStat will release this figure later, with a weighting.

But this calculation, which is made by considering only the middle month of the quarterly periods (that’s the best method to get the closest result to the annual average), indicates that annual unemployment for 2017 will likely be 11 percent. It is estimated that this result may differ from the TurkStat data by 0.1-0.2 percent at the most, meaning unemployment will have remained steady from 2016 to 2017.

TurkStat will release the annual average unemployment rate on Friday, March 23. Interns and trainees will be considered insured employees, a debatable move that we will discuss in due course.

$821 m ll on flew out n just two weeks

Non-residents took out a total of $821 million in two weeks between February 23 and March 9. After a net capital outflow of $122 million over the week of February 23 to March 2, $699 million of capital flew out from March 2 to March 9. $237 million of this was from stocks and $584 million from government debt securities (DIBS). Foreign investors’ net purchases between the beginning of the year and March 9 declined to $108 million after two weeks of capital outflows. In this period of almost two and a half months, foreign investors bought DIBS of $405 million and sold stocks valued at $297 million.