Erdogan presses for 1.5 million new jobs ahead of key vote
Faced with a worsening economic downturn, Turkey’s president scrambles to achieve some improvement, even if transient, ahead of a critical referendum in April.
ANKARA, Turkey — As Turkey counts down to a critical April referendum on a presidential regime, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan see ever growing reasons for “national mobilization.”
After the Turkish lira’s dramatic slump against the dollar, for instance, Erdogan declared a “national mobilization” to curb the greenback, urging citizens to convert their dollar savings to Turkish liras or gold. Soon, the Turks were called to mobilize to prop up the shrinking domestic market. In a bid to encourage citizens to spend more, the government cut taxes on furniture, domestic appliances and home sales. Then came “the national housing mobilization” as 10 public and private banks provided a new credit line for homebuyers until March 31, offering 20-year repayment schemes on purchases from a number of major housing projects, led by a state-owned real estate investment company.
The latest call for “national mobilization” came Feb. 7, and the target this time was the soaring unemployment rate. Speaking at a gathering of the Turkish Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges (TOBB), a business group boasting 1.5 million members, Erdogan claimed Turkey was under an “economic terror” attack and urged a “hiring mobilization” to start curbing the unemployment rate in March.
Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, for his part, did some math and offered the following formula, saying, “If each TOBB member hires one new person, 1.5 million people will get jobs. If we increase the number to two, we will be speaking of 3 million [new jobs].”
