Turkish January employment firm on strong manufacturing

ANKARA

Members of labour unions climb onto a monument during a protest against the ruling AKP government's policy of privatization of state-owned companies in the past and its current use of subcontractors, Feb. 15. REUTERS Photo

Turkish unemployment declined slightly on an annual basis in the first month of the year in parallel with firm manufacturing indicators, but remained in two digits for the second month in a row, official data has shown.

According to January household labor statistics announced by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK), the number of unemployed Turkish people has dropped by 49,000 from the same period of the previous year to 2.841 million.

Data showed that the joblessness rate fell by 0.5 percentage points from the same period last year to 10.1 percent. Calendar-adjusted unemployment, meanwhile, fell by 0.3 points to 9.1 percent.

Non-agricultural unemployment and joblessness among those aged 15 to 24 also fell during the period by 0.6 points to 12.3 percent and 1.7 percent to 19 percent, respectively.

The number of employed people in the country soared to 25.194 million, as 761,000 people joined the ranks of the working compared to January 2013.

While the number of people working in the agriculture sector decreased by 91,000, the non-agricultural sector provided employment to 852,000 more people.

Finansbank economist Gökçe Çelik said the recovery in employment indicates a strong trend in manufacturing, even though indicators for domestic demand at the beginning of the year were weak.

According to its medium-term program, the government expects to reach the 9.4 percent unemployment level in 2014, but the foreseen economic slowdown is expected to cause the government to miss its target this year as well.

Turkish joblessness was 10 percent in December, returning to double-digits after nine months.