A total of 1,955,000 people in Turkey applied for unemployment benefits in 2019, according to data from the Turkish Employment Agency (İŞKUR), the Cumhuriyet daily reported.
The year 2019 saw a 19.8 percent increase in the number of people applying for unemployment when compared to 2018.
Yet only 1,013,056 of the people who applied for benefits were approved for the monthly payments. The other applications were turned down on the grounds that they did not meet the required criteria such as having worked for at least 120 days before dismissal or having paid unemployment premiums for at least 600 days over the past three years.
In the meantime, TL 131 billion has accumulated in the Unemployment Benefits Fund, of which only TL 10 billion has been paid out in benefits.
Turkey’s unemployment rate edged down to 13.3 percent in November from 13.4 percent a month earlier. The unemployment rate stood at 12.3 percent in the same period of the previous year.