By Selcuk Gokoluk
ANKARA, Dec 5 (Reuters) - Rising unemployment among young Turks threatens to fuel social unrest and could further obstruct accession talks with the European Union, which fears it might be swamped by a wave of migration.
Jobless claims more than doubled in November in Turkey, rising 146.9 percent from a year earlier to 139,233. Data shows that the global financial crisis has helped force one in five Turkish youths out of work.
Hundreds of workers and students clashed with police in the capital Ankara last weekend at a protest against rising prices. And some fear that high levels of poverty in eastern Turkey could spur the fight by Kurdish separatists.
"Turkey has a young population. If they are not educated and employed, it means you have a bomb in your hands," said Bulent Pirler, general secretary of the Turkish employers' group TISK.
Dozens of textiles factories, a major employer of low-skilled workers, have shut down and car makers have suspended production as consumers become reluctant to part with their cash.
Data shows that 1.09 million people are registered at the state unemployment agency, but it is advertising only 14,526 job offers. More than one third of the jobless claims registered last month were made by people aged 15-24, it said.
Young Turks wait in queues outside embassies and employment agencies hoping to get a job abroad.
A European diplomat said the European Union feared thousands of young Turks would leave their homes and head for other European countries. He said such an exodus would be an obstacle to accession into the 27-member club.
"The EU would like to see the level of unemployment and especially youth unemployment lowered during the course of accession negotiations in the next 10 years because the youth are most likely to migrate," he said.
Turkey started accession talks with Brussels in 2005, but it is not expected to join the bloc for several years.
NO HOPE
Many companies say they do not know when they will start hiring again. Turkey's economic growth, averaging 7 percent annually since 2001, has been hurt by the financial crisis, striking at the core of its manufacturing economy.
Demand has fallen for textiles, cars and electronics.
"It is not a good time to hire workers. We are working with the minimum number of people possible," said chief executive of tractor producer Erkunt, Zeynep Erkunt Armagan.
She said the company had cut its production forecast for 2009 to 1,500 tractors from 2,400.
Competition from low-cost producers like China is stiffening as markets shrink around the world, she said.
"The Chinese sell a tractor for $15,000, we cannot even make a tractor for that price," she said.
Business leaders said a more flexible labour code was needed.
"Part-time jobs and temporary work contracts are not applicable under the current laws. The labour market needs to be more flexible," Pirler said, pointing out that severance pay was above the world average.
The ruling pro-business AK Party fears it might be punished at the ballot box in local elections in March if it fails to help the unemployed.
Labour and Social Security Minister Faruk Celik has said a cut in social security premiums by five percentage points and an offer to pay the premiums of young workers for the first year should help protect jobs.
But that has failed to reassure many, and hundreds of young men hope to join a 3-million strong Turkish expatriate community in Europe and elsewhere.
"I can go to Dubai or Africa, wherever there is a job. I am sure things are better over there than here," said Hamit Caliskan, 23, as he waited in a queue of around 50 people in front of an employment agency office.
He said he had a job producing prefabricated houses until five months ago. "Factories hire you and fire you after a couple of months without paying and say they have no money to pay." (Editing by Elizabeth Piper)