A major Turkish labor union has warned of a deepening unemployment crisis in Turkey despite a slight decrease in the country’s broadly defined unemployment rate in September.
The Research Center of the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions of Turkey (DİSK-AR) warned that the decline masks a deepening unemployment crisis marked by shrinking job opportunities, a growing potential labor force and millions left without social protection.
The Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) released its “Labour Force Statistics, September 2025” report on Monday.
According to the data, the number of narrowly defined unemployed people, which refers to individuals aged 15 and above who were not employed during the referenced period, actively searched for a job in the past four weeks and were ready to start work within the next two weeks, increased by 12,000 to 3.075 million in September compared to the previous month. The narrowly defined unemployment rate remained 8.6 percent.
Broadly defined unemployment, which also includes those who have lost hope of finding a job, are not actively seeking employment but are ready to work, seasonal workers and those with time-related underemployment, decreased by 1.2 percentage points to 28.6 percent in September compared to the previous month, which decreased since a five-year high of 32.8 percent in June.
DİSK-AR warned that the figures indicated a deepening crisis. The union highlighted that the number of broadly defined unemployed people increased by 1.25 million over the past year, reaching 11.75 million, and said the gap between the narrow and broad definitions of unemployment is “rapidly widening.”
The number of employed persons decreased by 200,000 to 32.4 million in September compared to the previous month. Employment stood at 48.9 percent, demonstrating a 0.3 percentage point decrease.
DİSK-AR noted a sharp increase in the “potential labor force,” individuals willing to work but unable to find a job, which grew by 1.05 million, from 4.26 million to 5.3 million, over the past year.
According to the union, only 485,419 people received unemployment benefits in September, covering just 16 percent of the total unemployed population.
Women continue to be disproportionately affected. Across all four unemployment categories reported by TurkStat, the unemployment rates of women remain significantly higher than those of men, with the gap in broad unemployment rates reaching 15.6 percentage points. Employment was 66.3 percent among men and 31.8 percent among women.
Although TurkStat data paint a positive picture of the unemployment rate in general, the institution’s statistics are met with skepticism. It faces frequent accusations of masking the real unemployment and inflation rates in order to hide the economic deterioration in the country.
(Stockholm Center for Freedom with reporting by Turkish Minute)
