According to a report from the Istanbul Institute of Political Studies (Istanpol), the number of people unemployed in the worst-case scenario in Turkey could reach 3 million 200 thousand. Out of these 3.2 million people, 2 million are paid employees and 1 million 200 thousand are casual employees.

Prof. Dr. Öner Günçavdı from İstanbul Technical University (ITU) and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ayşe Aylin Bayar and Prof. Dr. Haluk Levent from Bilgi University analyzed the best and worst-case scenarios for Turkey in this report. According to the report, the unemployment rate rises to 19.8 percent in the optimistic scenario and 25.9 percent in the pessimistic scenario.”

According to TURKSTAT data, the youth unemployment rate (15-24 years) was 24.5 percent in January. In the data of the last three months, youth unemployment has raised by 7.2 points compared to the previous year and broke a record with 27.1 percent.

Saying that “1 out of 4 youth is unemployed is a survival problem”, Deniz Aksakal (Professional Development and Training Senior Specialist) blames both the government and the opposition for the high unemployment figures:
‘’No one is willing to develop effective policies. If they really wanted to move the country and its society forward, they would have implemented necessary employment policies and position the youth more actively in an environment where the youth was so qualified.”

Within the scope of direct support, temporary income support was provided to employees at workplaces that stopped production with short-time working allowance, and a resource transfer of 2 billion TL was promised to families in need. However, in the report prepared for IstanPol, these supports are said to be “inadequate” and some suggestions are listed.

These include postponing or restructuring the debts of households with high indebtedness rates in order to keep consumption expenditures high, deferring taxes, or introducing exemptions, unrequited direct income supports for households.