Turkey’s unemployment rate at 10.9 percent in 2017

ANKARA – Anadolu Agency

Turkey’s annual unemployment rate has remained unchanged compared with the previous year, at 10.9 percent in 2017, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) announced on March 23.

It said the number of unemployed people aged 15 years and over—3.45 million last year—increased by 124,000, year-on-year.

The unemployment rate was “9.4 percent with a decrease of 0.2 percentage points for men and 14.1 percent with an increase of 0.4 percentage points for women,” the institute said.

Official data showed the non-agricultural unemployment rate also remained the same, at 13 percent last year.

While the youth unemployment rate, including the 15-24 age group was “20.8 percent with a 1.2 percentage point increase, the unemployment rate for the 15-64 age group occurred as 11.1 percent without any change,” TÜİK said.

The number of people employed rose by nearly one million in 2017, reaching 28.2 million people and moving the employment rate to 47.1 percent with a 0.8 percentage point annual increase.

Some 19.4 percent were employed in the agricultural sector, 19.1 percent in industry, 7.4 percent in construction and 54.1 percent in service, TÜİK also noted.

Furthermore, it said the labor force participation rate was 52.8 percent with a 0.8 percentage point annual increase—marking 31.6 million people in labor force.

The participation rate was realized as “72.5 percent with a 0.5 percentage point increase for men and 33.6 percent for women with a 1.1 percentage point increase,” the institute added.

Last year, the lowest unemployment rate was seen in May and June with 10.2 percent. Over the past five years, the highest unemployment rate was 13 percent in January 2017, while the lowest was seen in June 2013 with 8.1 percent.

As noted in Turkey’s medium-term economic program, the targeted annual unemployment rate at the end of 2017 was 10.8 percent, 10.5 percent for this year, 9.9 percent for next year and 9.6 percent in 2020.