The impact of COVID-19 on the Turkish labour market during 2021: Results from a nowcasting model using Google mobility data

The COVID-19 pandemic is far from over in 2021 and so its effects on the Turkish labour market. This research briefs uses Google mobility data to estimate the impact of the pandemic on hours worked until July 2021. It does so for the overall economy, for 16 regions and for, probably, the two hardest-hit sectors of the economy, the food and beverage sector and the accommodation sector.

This methodology first links the actual impact on hours worked during 2020 (for which HLFS microdata is utilized) with mobility indices of the same period. Then, it uses the estimated relationship to extrapolate the results onto 2021 on a weekly basis. The results suggests that even though the overall impact on hours worked has decreased in 2021 compared to 2020, it has significantly increased for the hospitality sector, which was already in a difficult situation.

Apart from this forecasting exercise, this brief calculates the impact of the pandemic on the hours worked by several vulnerable2 groups during 2020. The mentioned groups include informal workers, young people (15-24), Syrian migrants and domestic workers. In all cases the impact was over 20 per cent, and in the case of domestic workers reached 40.5 per cent.'