Women's employment in Turkey up 60 percent in 6 years

The presence of women in the workforce has broken a record in Turkey at 4 million, a 60 percent increase over the past six years. Development Minister Cevdet Yılmaz said there is, "[n]o development without women," and pointed to the importance of women's employment in the country.

As the government conducts positive discrimination for women in employment, investment, production and social politics, their participation in the workforce has hit a new high. Citing that the participation of university-educated women in the workforce has increased 70 percent, Yılmaz said that a stable workforce market has developed along with improved quality of employment and that important incentives have been provided for women in the workforce along with a comprehensive development model.

As part of the EU projects conducted in coordination with the Development Ministry, women are trained at employment-entrepreneurship centers and employed in participating firms. Under the guidelines of the entrepreneurship center project, employment and entrepreneurship centers for women are established in municipalities and women are given allowances for participating in the active workforce programs of the Turkish Employment Agency.

Explaining that good job opportunities will be provided in all sections over the next five-year-period, Yılmaz said that along with gender equality, improvements are being made to the occupational health and security fields as well. Pointing out that the country has seen 4 percent growth despite the geopolitical risks Turkey faces, Yılmaz continued: "Turkey has given a better performance than Europe. The biggest success was in employment, with 6 million new jobs created over a six year period. A flexible work environment will make even greater contributions to that growth." He also cited statistics from 2008, namely the 30.1 percent employment rate in the Southeastern Anatolia Project (GAP) that year, which increased to 35.2 percent in 2015.

While employment rates in EU-countries declined over that past six years, Turkey has managed a four-point increase with reforms. Business advisory services are provided to those who qualify for employment in the social services sector, 25 percent of whom will be employed within one year. The incentives are being updated to generate employment for 3 million young people over the next three years along with small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).