Unemployment rate ticks lower in February

ANKARA

The unemployment rate declined slightly from 9 percent in January to 8.7 in February, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) has said.

The number of jobless people fell by 109,000 within a month to 3 million, the data from the authority showed on April 15.

The unemployment rate among men was 8.7 percent, while it was 11.3 percent among women.

There were around 65.76 million people in Türkiye aged above 15, and the country’s total labor force was 35.5 million as of February, with 32.4 million people employed.

The labor force participation rate was unchanged at 54 percent in February compared with the previous month.

The employment rate improved slightly, climbing from 49.1 percent to 49.3 percent, according to the data from TÜİK.

The unemployment rate among the country’s youth – aged between 15 and 24 – was 15.6 percent in February, down from 16.4 percent in January.

A recent report by the Turkish Employment Agency (İŞKUR) showed that companies in different industries are grappling with growing job vacancies, pointing to difficulties in finding suitable workers, especially skilled personnel, to fulfill positions.

The highest number of job vacancies was in the manufacturing sector at 110,468 in the first quarter of 2024.

There were 90,000 unfulfilled jobs in the wholesale and retail trade sector in the January-March period, according to the report. In the construction sector, employees had difficulty in filling nearly 26,000 positions.

In the medium-term economic program, the unemployment rate is forecast to be 10.3 percent for 2024, when the government expects the economy to grow by 4 percent.

The government projects that the unemployment rate will fall to 9.9 percent in 2025 and further down to 9.3 percent in 2026.