Activating Vulnerable People into Good Jobs in Turkey

Despite Turkey’s strong economic performance and rich job creation in recent years, the Turkish labor market continues to suffer persistent low activity rates and low labor productivity. About half of the Turkish working-age population (WAP) does not enter the labor market and nearly 40 percent of workers are informal (holding jobs without social security benefits). While the overall unemployment rate in 2012 stands at a moderate 9.2 percent, this rate does not reveal the particular situation of women and youth.

This Executive Summary reflects on four connected background papers. A Conceptual Framework first defines vulnerability and activation policies. A second background paper takes stock of the progress of activation policies in Turkey to date. A third background paper profiles the large and diverse group of vulnerable people in Turkey into units of higher or lower priority, while the final background paper examines how the capacity and skills of the vulnerable, especially those in the high priority units, can be built.