Turkey’s unemployment rate rises to 12.6 percent, youth unemployment to 23.3 percent in February

ANKARA

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Turkey’s unemployment rate was announced at 12.6 percent in the February period, with a 1.7 percent year-on-year increase, official data showed on May 15. 

This rate showed a slight decrease from a seven-year high at 13 percent in the previous month, data from the Turkish Statistics Institute (TÜİK) showed.  

The number of unemployed people over 15 years old increased by 676,000 to 3.9 million people in the period of February 2017 in Turkey compared with the same period of the previous year.

In the same period, the non-agricultural unemployment rate was 14.8 percent with a 2.1 percentage point increase. 

Youth employment hit 23.3 percent in the February period, which covered data from January, February and March, with a 4.7 percent of increase compared to the same period of 2016. 

The number of employed people rose by 500,000 to around 27 million in the period of February 2017 compared with the same period of the previous year. 

The employment rate was unchanged at 45.3 percent, according to TÜİK data.