Number of farmers in Turkey plummets below half a million

Duvar English

According to the latest Employment Monitoring Bulletin by the Ankara-based think tank Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV), the number of farmers in Turkey has dropped to its lowest level in recent years.

Accordingly, the number of farmers in the country decreased by 75,000 (13.2 percent) to 493,000 from January 2021 to January 2022. 

The report also gave statistics on the number of people employed in other sectors. Accordingly, the number of insured employees increased by 1.1 million (5.1 percent) on an annual basis and amounted to 22.2 million.

According to the report, 27.7 percent of the total insured employees are employed in the manufacturing sector, 15.6 percent in the wholesale/retail trade sector and 9.2 percent in the construction sector.

Another 17.1 percent are employed in the accommodation and food service sector, 14.7 percent in the education sector and 9.9 percent in the transportation and storage sector. 

According to the report, there was a decrease in the number of insured employees in 12 of 89 sub-sectors. The sector that contracted the most was the building and landscaping activities sector with 17,000 job losses.

Female employees make up 32 percent of total employment

While the number of female employees increased compared to the previous year, it decreased from December 2021 to January 2022. While the number of insured female employees increased by 490,000 in January 2022 compared to the previous year, it decreased by 4,700 compared to December and reached 5.1 million. The share of female employees in total employment rose to 32.1 percent.

The report stated that half of the insured employees were employed in five big cities. These provinces are respectively, based on their employment share: Istanbul (27.9 percent), Ankara (7.8 percent), İzmir (6.3 percent), Bursa (4.8 percent) and Kocaeli (3.7 percent).