CONSUMER CONFIDENCE NOSEDIVES IN MARCH

The consumer confidence index was down by 2.9% from 82.5 to 80.1 in March, compared to the previous month, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat). The financial situation expectation of households over the next 12 months declined by 5.5% from 84.2 to 79.6, while the general economic situation expectation index over the next 12 months decreased by 3.3% from 85.8 to 83.0 in this period. The index for the assessment of spending money on durable goods over the next 12 months, meanwhile, went down by 2.7% from 94.5 to 92.0 in the same period. The consumer tendency survey wasn’t conducted in Adiyaman, Gaziantep, Hatay, Kahramanmaras, Kilis, Malatya, and Osmaniye, which were hit by twin quakes on February 6. The consumer confidence index is calculated from survey results and evaluated within a range of 0-200, indicating an optimistic outlook when the reading is above 100 and a pessimistic one when it is below.

The unemployment rate declined by 1.6 points to 10.4% in 2022, compared to the previous year, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat). The number of unemployed people aged 15 and over decreased by 337,000 to 3.58 million in the same period. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate stood at 9.7% last year. The employment rate rose by 2.3 percentage points to 47.5% in 2022, as compared to 2021. The number of employed people surged by 1.95 million to 30.75 million in the same period. The labor force participation rate increased by 1.7 points to 53.1% year-over-year in 2022. Some 34.33 million people made up the labor force in 2022, a hike of 1.61 million workers from the previous year.