Turkish government aims to reduce jobless rate to 5 percent

ANKARA - Anatolia News Agency

Turkish Development Minister Cevdet Yılmaz speaks at a meeting. AA photo

The Turkish government aims to reduce the unemployment rate to 5 percent in the framework of its 2023 vision, said Development Minister Cevdet Yılmaz during a meeting yesterday.

“We plan to decrease unemployment to 5 percent. The tenth five-year [development] plan, which we have been working on, is very important. We will present the plan, the first five-year period of our 2023 vision, to the public in the next weeks,” said Yılmaz during the meeting where a report titled “Turkey: Management of Labor Markets during Economic Volatility,” prepared jointly by Turkish Ministry of Development and the World Bank, was launched.

The minister said the joblessness rate in Turkey decreased to 9.2 percent in Turkey last year from 14 percent in 2009.

Yılmaz stressed that female participation in the labor force and the employment rate of women had considerably increased in recent years in Turkey. “As 4,083,000 new employments were created between 2007 and 2012, 48 percent of these were occupied by women,” he said.

The labor force participation rate for women reached 29.5 percent last year, from 23.7 percent in 2007, said Yılmaz. But, the employment rate of women stayed at 26.3 percent, according to official figures.

Country Director for Turkey of the World Bank Martin Raiser said despite the weak female employment rate in Turkey, women benefited from employment opportunities after the global crisis.