by Ruslan Tukhbatullin
President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov held a meeting in Ashhgabat with representatives of Turkmenistan’s Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the organization.
Greeting the businessmen, the head of state quoted some figures which are supposed to demonstrate the success of the Union’s performance.
Among other things, the President said that the total number of privately-owned enterprises exceeded 18 thousand. Almost 150 thousand people are provided with jobs.
Usually the working age population worldwide accounts for approximately 50% of the total population.
Assuming that Turkmenistan’s population is about 5 million, half of which is considered able-bodied, we will see that only 6% out of the country’s total workforce is employed in the private sector. Consequently, the remaining 94% are public sector employees.
This is a staggering figure.According to Wikipedia (the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and International Labour Organization statistics), the share of public sector employees in the Russian Federation amounts to 30,5%, the US 17,6% and Germany 15,3%.
However, it should be mentioned that we do not know the official statistics for unemployed residents which was not taken into account during the estimate.The percentage of those employed in the private sector might be more than 6%, but this indicator directly correlates with the number of unemployed, with the working age population and the country’s total population.
In other words, the high percentage of private sector employees will either lead to the increase in the number of unemployed or dependent or to the decrease in the country’s population of the country.