Professional, Scientific and Technical Activities industry

The outlook of the Turkish economy has changed since the mid-2018

The outlook of the Turkish economy has changed since the mid-2018. The economy started to visibly contract beginning from the second quarter of 2018 due to financial crisis triggered by the onset of drastic depreciation of Turkish Lira which started in April 2018 and continued until the Central Bank of Turkey's 625 basis points interest rate hike in September 2018. During that period Turkish Lira depreciated as much as 90 per cent. As the Turkish economy considerably slowed down following a prolonged expansion stage in mid-2018 and started to contract, TurkAnalitik expects that in 2019 the Professional, Scientific and Technical Activities industry experience excess capacity as the demand softens rapidly in response to drastic drop in consumer and business spending and witness a sizable increase in operation costs due fast pace of inflation and currency depreciation. Large enterprises in the industry are expected to downsize to maintain their profit margin levels while quite a few small and medium businesses to file for bankruptcy protection. 

Low degree of capital intensity

TurkAnalitik classifies the Turkish Professional, Scientific and Technical Activities industry as an industry with a low degree of capital intensity as the proportion of total personnel costs to total purchases of goods and services is nearly 20 percentage points. The scientific research and development subsector has a higher capital intensity ratio (52.19 per cent) than the other subsectors of the industry. TurkAnalitik classifies this subsector as an industry with a medium degree of capital intensity.

The apparent labor productivity

Labor force participation and employment levels also play an important role in creating demand for the industry. As of January 2019, number of employed persons aged 15 years old and over realized as 27.1 million persons in Turkey and employment rate of 44.5 per cent. Employment rate occurred as 61.3 per cent for male and 28.1 per cent for female. As of January 2019, 17 per cent of the employed was employed in agriculture, 19.9 per cent was employed in industry, 5.4 per cent was employed in construction and 57.7 per cent was employed in service sector in Turkish economy.  

The apparent labor productivity of the Professional, Scientific and Technical Activities industry in 2017 was 50,800 TL per person employed, which was much below the non-financial business economy average of 90,800 TL per person employed. However, average personnel costs within the Professional, Scientific and Technical Activities industry were 40,400 TL per employee, which was slightly below the average for the non-financial business economy (43,800 TL per employee).