THE IMPACT OF INTERNET USAGE, INFLATION, AND FOREIGN CAPITAL INVESTMENT ON EMPLOYMENT: AN ARDL APPROACH FOR TURKIYE

Employment is a key macroeconomic indicator that links economic growth with social welfare and productive capacity. This study investigates the effects of individual internet usage, inflation, and foreign direct investment on employment in Türkiye over the period 1993-2024 by employing an autoregressive distributed lag framework to capture long-run dynamics. ARDL bounds testing confirms the existence of a long-term cointegration relationship among the variables. Long-run coefficient estimates reveal that both internet usage and inflation exert positive and statistically significant effects on employment, whereas the impact of foreign direct investment is statistically insignificant. These findings suggest that employment dynamics in Türkiye are primarily driven by digitalization and domestic macroeconomic conditions, while international capital inflows do not generate the anticipated level of job creation. By jointly examining digitalization, price dynamics, and foreign capital, the study offers integrated empirical evidence on the structural drivers of employment in Türkiye beyond single-factor approaches.