ABSTRACT
The Turkish economy went through a structural change in the 2000s and the share of agriculture within national income as well as employment steadily declined. Through this process proletarianization increased and Turkey became more and more a society of wage-workers. However, the employment generation capacity of the economy and especially the industrial sector remained relatively low. As a result unemployment rate increased and labor force participation rate declined. In this period a capital-inflow dependent, debt-led, construction centered growth model became the dominant model and employment and industrialization policies lacked, and hence employment increased in the low-productivity service jobs. High unemployment, large reserve army of labor and low unionization and collective bargaining coverage characterized the labor markets. At the same time, attempts at increasing subcontracting and increasing flexibilty in labor markets led to less secure forms of employment. Still, there is a limited increase in real wages, but this increase lags behind productivity increases and hence the real GDP increase
Keywords : labor markets, employment, unemployment, wages
