The State of Unemployment and Economic Growth in Mersin (and Why My Kombucha Startup Failed)
okay, so mersin. it's…warm. like, aggressively warm. not the dry heat of, say, cappadocia (which, honestly, is a quick flight away and you should go), but a humid, sticky kind of warm that makes your eyeliner melt before you even leave the apartment. it's been hovering around thirty-two degrees celsius for, like, a month straight.
i’m a vintage clothes picker, alright? i travel, i hunt, i resell. thought mersin would be a goldmine. turns out, everyone here already has their grandmother’s amazing stuff, and they’re not letting it go cheap. my initial plan - a kombucha and vintage pop-up shop - spectacularly flopped. like, spectacularly.
and that brings me to the economy. everyone keeps saying mersin is “up and coming,” which is code for “it’s cheap now, but it won’t be for long.” the official unemployment rate is around nine percent, which, let’s be real, is a polite way of saying a lot of people are hustling. i’ve met more delivery drivers than i can count, and the *pazar is packed with people selling everything from homemade jams to suspiciously cheap electronics.
but here’s the thing: it’s not all doom and gloom. there’s a lot of construction happening, mostly around the coastline. apparently, there’s a big push for tourism, and a ton of new hotels and apartments are going up. which means jobs, eventually. but also, probably, higher rent. right now, you can find a decent one-bedroom apartment in the city center for around ₺15,000-₺20,000 a month (that’s roughly $450-$600 usd, give or take the daily exchange rate rollercoaster). outside the center, you’re looking at closer to ₺10,000-₺15,000. it’s still way cheaper than istanbul, thank god.
my friend, ahmet, who runs a tiny cafe near the marina, told me something interesting. he said the biggest employers aren’t the big factories or the hotels, it’s the logistics companies. mersin is a major port, and everything coming in and out of turkey seems to pass through here. so, if you’re looking for work, that’s where to start. he also warned me about the traffic. apparently, getting anywhere during rush hour is a special kind of hell. Check out this Mersin travel guide on TripAdvisor for some tips on navigating the chaos.
overheard gossip #1: “don’t trust the guy selling carpets near the train station. he’ll tell you it’s silk, but it’s definitely polyester.”
so, economic growth? it’s happening, but it’s messy. it’s not a smooth, upward curve. it’s more like a jagged line with a lot of dips and spikes. and unemployment? it’s real. but there’s a resilience here, a willingness to hustle, that i haven’t seen in a lot of other places. people are making things work. they’re starting small businesses, offering services, finding creative ways to survive.
and the food! oh my god, the food. the lokantas are incredible. i had the best lahmacun of my life here. seriously. and the fresh fruit… forget about it. Yelp has some decent reviews of local restaurants.
overheard gossip #2: “the best simit is from the guy with the blue cart near the beach. but you have to get there early, or he sells out.”
my kombucha dream might be dead, but mersin isn’t. it’s a complicated, chaotic, and surprisingly charming city. it’s not for everyone, but if you’re willing to embrace the mess, you might just find something special here. i’m still looking for vintage treasures, and maybe, just maybe, i’ll find a way to make a living doing it. or at least, enough to afford more lahmacun. Here's a local subreddit for Mersin.
overheard gossip #3:* “avoid the back streets near the old bazaar at night. it’s not dangerous, exactly, but…uncomfortable.”
and honestly, if anyone needs a slightly used kombucha brewing kit, hit me up. seriously. Check out this forum for expats in Mersin.
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