The subject and aim of this study are to examine the problem of globalizing graduate employment/unemployment and the holistic entrepreneurship strategy against this problem in the axis of Turkey. Two types of methods were followed here: First, as a method of thought, the “deductive” path was followed, since the focus was on specific graduate unemployment instead of the general unemployment problem and the solution based solely on graduate entrepreneurship instead of general employment entrepreneurship. Secondly, as a research method, with the help of official statistical data and literature, the problem and solution (i.e., diagnosis and treatment) were described and parsed-synthesized. One of the expected results from this study is to introduce the Turkish dimension of the graduate labor market and entrepreneurship problem to the world; the other is to emphasize global cooperation to tackle the problem of graduate unemployment.
TopIntroduction
General and graduate unemployment is one of the chronic socio-economic problems of not only Turkey but the entire contemporary capitalist world. Youth unemployment is a national and global crisis that cannot be considered temporary, that is, it seems to be permanent. Like many countries, Turkey also updates and implements various population, education and employment policies to combat this problem that threatens human capital and wastes public resources.
It is very difficult to distinguish between graduate unemployment and youth unemployment, because after the compulsory education period in Turkey was increased to 12 years, these two derivative unemployment categories began to intertwine. Therefore, the young unemployed are now largely counted as graduate unemployed. In this study, unless otherwise stated, it should not be considered a big mistake if the unemployed graduates are mentioned as young unemployed as a reflection of a common point of view.
According to the general definition of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the youth unemployment rate is the number of unemployed people aged 15-24 as a percentage of the youth workforce. The unemployed are people who report being unemployed, available for work, and taking active steps to find a job in the past four weeks. According to June 2021 data, while the G-7 average in youth unemployment is 10.5% and the OECD average is 12.9%, this rate is 24% in Turkey. The average of the European Union (EU), which Turkey is trying to become a full member of but has not yet become, is 17%. However, Turkey has fewer youth unemployed than Spain and Greece. (Among OECD countries, Japan has the lowest with 4.5% and Costa Rica the highest with 39.9%.) (See OECD Data, 2021.)
Of course, the world is not just OECD, so unemployment is rather the most burning socio-economic problem of underdeveloped and developing countries. According to estimates, there is a youth unemployed population of around 700 million in the world. The United Nations (UN) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) warn governments by stating that youth unemployment has once again raised the alarm all over the world with the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic. The ILO develops serious policies and programs to prepare young people for employment in conflict and fragile environments. Considering that youth is an indispensable age group for both violence and peace, it is known that permanent and sustainable peace and stability can be achieved with the least possible unemployment and maximum employment. This assumption is also valid for Turkey as an Afro-Eurasian economy, which is an important player in preventing regional conflicts and establishing peace.
First, the unemployed graduates may be in the young or older age groups: Today, almost every young person is a graduate one, but not every graduate may be young. Therefore, the fact that every graduate is young or old does not reduce the quality and importance of the graduate unemployment problem. It is very difficult to always see the graduate-young distinction in statistics, so this study makes use of the obligatory inference that there is a transitivity between these two concepts.
Secondly, the problem of graduate unemployment is not only a structural problem of underdeveloped and developing countries, but also continues to be a cyclical problem of developed countries. Therefore, this dramatic mass problem cannot be reduced to a single geography of the world on the denominator of development and has already become globalized. The “global village”, in which Turkey is located, has graduate unemployees from the east, west, north and south, and as long as they remain unemployed, they begin to lose hope against the governers of that village. At this point, in order to revive hopes, employment packages that are generally broad in developed countries but narrow in underdeveloped/developing countries are updated and activated. Although the problem is global but the struggle against the problem seems local, labor migration movements that gained momentum with globalization have drawn this perspective to the “glocalization” line.