Investigating the effect of Syrian refugees on the gross domestic product and unemployment rate in Turkey between 2011-2017

The Syrian civil war started in March 2011 and resulted in mass migration out of Syria into the neighbouring countries. Turkey has received the greatest number of refugees from Syria. As the Syrian conflict intensified and lengthened, the number of Syrian refugees in Turkey increased and the Syrian population started to reside in the neighbouring provinces and started to have important effects on the local economy. This paper examines the impact of Syrian refugees on the total gross domestic product and the unemployment rate in Turkey from 2011-2017. The results showed that the Syrian refugees has a strong positive impact on the unemployment rate in Turkey and a weak negative impact on the GDP of Turkey. For instance, the unemployment rate had been increased not only because of the flew of the Syrian refugees but also the Turkish employers were choosing the Syrian workers instead of the Turkish once since it is cheaper labour cost and there was no need to make any insurance for them. However, there was no enough data regarding the informal employment of the Syrian refugees. On the other hand, the impact on GDP can't be measured recently because there is a lack of time and further years needed to get an accurate result.