Turkey’s unemployment rate fell to 10.6 pct in February

ANKARA

Turkey’s unemployment rate stood at 10.6 percent in February, falling 2 percentage points on a yearly basis, the Turkish Statistics Institute (TÜİK) said on May 15.

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 9.8 percent, not changing, official data also showed.

TÜİK said the number of unemployed people aged 15 years and above decreased by 546,000 from 3.35 million last February.

In the same period, non-agricultural unemployment rate occurred as 12.5 percent with a 2.3 percentage point decrease, TÜİK said.

While youth unemployment rate, including people aged 15-24, stood at 19 percent with a 4.3 percentage point decrease, the unemployment rate for people aged 15-64 occurred as 10.5 percent with a 2 percentage point decrease, according to TÜİK data.

The number of employed people rose by some 1.2 million to nearly 28.2 million over the same period, moving the employment rate to 46.6 percent with a 1.3 percentage point annual increase, TÜİK added.

Some 17.7 percent of the employed were employed in agriculture, 20 percent in industry, 7 percent in construction and 55.3 percent in services, according to TÜİK data.

Labor force participation rate (LFPR) was 52.2 percent in February, with a 0.4 percentage point increase.

LFPR for men was 71.5 percent, with a 0.2 percentage point decrease, and the rate for women was 33.3 percent, with a 1 percentage point of increase, when compared with the same period of the previous year.

According to data gathered by Finance Ministry, total public sector employment was recorded at 3.7 million, with a 4.4 percentage point increase in the first quarter of 2018 when compared to the same period of the previous year.