Turkey must cut unemployment to single-digits: PM Yıldırım

ANKARA

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Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım has said it is a must for the Turkish government to slash unemployment rate, which hit nearly 13 percent, to single digits again, underlining the country’s strengths and weaknesses on the road to achieving this goal. 

“Thanks to the great moves of Turkey’s employers for a recent campaign to boost employment across Turkey, some 1.2 million new jobs were created since February, pushing down the unemployment rate. This is not enough. We have to cut the unemployment rate back to single digits again,” Yıldırım said in a meeting with representatives from labor unions late on June 1. 

Turkey’s unemployment rate was announced 12.6 percent in the February period, with a 1.7 percent year-on-year increase, official data showed on May 15. This rate showed a slight decrease from a seven-year high at 13 percent in the previous month, data from the Turkish Statistics Institute (TÜİK) showed. 

The government started the campaign to boost employment in February.

Turkey can achieve its goal to reduce unemployment by giving a further boost to investment and production, said Yıldırım. 

“We have two strengths. Turkey has a young population, which leads to high dynamism. This is one of our key advantages. Another advantage of ours is the geographical positioning of our country. Turkey is located in the middle of global markets,” he said. 

Labor force participation in Turkey is, however, higher than the country’s new job creation level, he said. 

“We are aware of this issue. This can be solved only by making new investments and launching new businesses,” Yıldırım added.