Following a brief theoretical discussion on unemployment and reasons for the decreasing ability of the industrial sector to create new jobs in recent decades, the authors present a summary profıle of unemployment in contemporary Turkey and move on to describe the fundamental issues related to unemployment insurance in Turkey focusing, in particular, on the problems deriving from the very large size of the informal sector and from the size and nature of the agricultural sector and agricultural employment. The authors then delve into a number of problems regarding the nature of unemployment insurance as it is being implemented at present. Pointing out that the ceiling for benefıts is set equal to the minimum wage; that only a very small ratio of the labor force is covered, that hardly any money is being spent on active employment policies and that outlays on benefıts are alsa miniscule, the authors emphasize that the ratio of such outlays to the huge surpluses of the fund indicate that the fund, at present, serves not its proper purposes but rather the fınancing of the public defıcit. The authors who present an analysis of the income/expenditure tables of the Fund that lays bare some shocking figures and ratios, conclude saying that a proper implementation of "unemployment insurance" in Turkey may not be possible until the plethora of economic and social problems are simultaneously solved.
Article Language: EnglishTurkish
|
