The Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) foreign policy, which started out as “zero problems with neighbors” before shifting to a neo-Ottoman ground in 2011, has come with economic repercussions. The Turkish economy today is in the grips of grave economic woes, with unemployment reaching its highest level in 57 months.

According to the figures released by the Turkish Statistics Agency (TUIK) last week, the official unemployment rate has climbed to 11.3%, with women taking the heaviest blow. The rate translates to 3,259,000 jobless people, including 2,117,000 men and 1,142,000 women.

The TUIK figures, however, ignore a crucial factor that makes unemployment look lower than it actually is: the hopeless. People who have lost hope of finding a job and stopped looking for one are not factored in. Their number has reached 2,535,000, which, added to TUIK’s official figure, brings the total number of jobless to 5,794,000.

Over the past year, employers laid off 227,000 women, which represents a higher rate proportionally compared with men who lost their jobs.