Turkey’s unemployment rate rises to 12.3 pct in November 2018

ANKARA

Turkey’s unemployment rate rises to 12.3 pct in November 2018, the country's statistical authority announced on Feb. 15.

“The number of unemployed persons aged 15 years old and over increased by 706,000 to 3,98 million persons in the period of November 2018 in Turkey compared with the same period of the previous year. The unemployment rate occurred as 12.3 percent with 2 percentage point increase,” the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) said.

"In the same period, non-agricultural unemployment rate occurred as 14.3 percent with 2.1 percentage point increase. While youth unemployment rate including persons aged 15-24 was 23.6 percent with 4.3 percentage point increase, the unemployment rate for persons aged 15-64 occurred as 12.6 percent with 2.1 percentage point increase," it added.

The rate of unregistered employment realized as 33.6 percent, according to TÜİK.

Meanwhile, public sector employment recorded an increase of 20.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2018 compared to the same period of the previous year. Total public sector employment realized as 4.35 million persons, according to data gathered by Presidency of Strategy and Budget. This increase was mainly due to the fact that subcontractors, who had not previously been involved in public employment, were employed as public employees.

The government aims to reach an unemployment rate of 11.3 percent in 2018, 12.1 percent this year, 11.9 next year and 10.8 percent in 2021, under the new economic program announced in September 2018.

Last year, the lowest unemployment rate was observed in April with 9.6 percent.

Since November 2013, the highest unemployment rate was 13 percent in January 2017, while the lowest was in May 2014 with 8.8 percent.