Circular Economy Innovations and Employment: an Analysis for Manufacturing Companıes in Türkiye

By making the economy “greener” and reducing input use, the circular economy is central to discussions on sustainable development. The circular economy’s relationship with the Economic and Environmental pillars of sustainability, which are one of the three main pillars, has been extensively studied in the literature. Nevertheless, the circular economy’s interaction with the third pillar, the social pillar, has been underexplored. One of the phenomena that can reveal the relation of the circular economy to the social pillar of sustainability is its impact on employment. This study investigates the effects of circular economy innovations on employment for companies operating in Türkiye’s manufacturing sector. To this end, it uses a data set collected by the Ministry of Industry and Technology from 10,063 companies in 2016. According to the econometric analysis results, when the firms’ main characteristics and their employment levels in the past are controlled, and the endogeneity of circular economy practices are accounted for, circular economy innovations have a statistically insignificant relationship with firm-level employment.