Turkish employment performance tops European states

By Dilara Zengin and Erdal Celikel

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey became the top country in Europe in terms of providing employment between 2012 and 2016, according to data from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) and Eurostat compiled by Anadolu Agency.

The number of employed people in Turkey increased to 27.2 million in 2016, up from 24.8 million in 2012, TurkStat revealed.

According to TurkStat's latest report released on Monday, the employment rate in Turkey rose by 1.1 million persons to 28.7 million persons in July, compared to same period of last year.

Two main drivers -- an increasing number of service jobs and manufacturing -- played an important role in Turkey's rising employment, economist Bora Tamer Yilmaz told Anadolu Agency.

Yilmaz noted that service jobs in various sectors such as construction, security, defense, finance and information technologies were providing opportunities.

Construction especially was creating many job opportunities in Turkey as there is an ongoing urbanization trend in the country, he added.

Turkey manages to run a stable manufacturing workforce in contrast to developed markets that are losing manufacturing jobs, Yilmaz said.

Turkey also benefits a demographic advantage with its higher proportion of young people compared to most European countries.

European Union countries provided jobs for 225.1 million persons in 2012 while it employed 232.1 million persons in 2016, Eurostat showed.

Turkey, the U.K. and Germany were top three countries which saw increased employment in the last five years.

The U.K. followed Turkey in the list by finding employment for an extra two million persons between 2012 and 2016, according to Eurostat. German employment increased by 1.6 million persons in the same period.

Erol Gurcan, investment advisory manager at Gedik Investment, said Turkey's increasing employment was positive although interpreting on nominal values would not be sufficient to understand the whole picture as total population, the population growth rate and demographic structure all reveal differences for each country.

Gurcan underlined that the sustainability of the employment increase in the long run is as important as the government's support implemented after the second half of 2016.

"When we take into account the demographic structure of Turkey, we should emphasize the importance of sustainable economic growth performance at five percent and above for employment," he added.

Meanwhile, Romania, Greece, Finland and Southern Cyprus were EU countries where employment shrank the most in the last five years.

Number of employed individuals in EU countries and Turkey between 2012 and 2016: