In this photo released by an official website of the Iranian Supreme Leader office, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, right, talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during their meeting in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, April 7, 2015. Erdogan is visiting Iran despite tensions with Tehran over the crisis in Yemen, where airstrikes by a Saudi-led coalition are targeting Iran-backed Shiite rebels who have taken over much of the country. (AP Photo/ Office of Iranian Supreme Leader)
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has pistol-whipped the military, encouraged Islamic extremists, worried his NATO allies, seems pretty comfortable with the idea of a nuclear Iran — and now this:
According to the figures released by the Turkish Statistics Agency (TUIK) last week, the official unemployment rate has climbed to 11.3%, with women taking the heaviest blow. The rate translates to 3,259,000 jobless people, including 2,117,000 men and 1,142,000 women.
The TUIK figures, however, ignore a crucial factor that makes unemployment look lower than it actually is: the hopeless. People who have lost hope of finding a job and stopped looking for one are not factored in. Their number has reached 2,535,000, which, added to TUIK’s official figure, brings the total number of jobless to 5,794,000.
Sound familiar?
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