Unemployment rises as economy slows down

ISTANBUL

Turkey’s unemployment rate increased to 10.1 percent in March, marking a slight increase of 0.2 percent from a year ago.

The number of unemployed persons increased by 186,000 in the period of March and has reached 2.8 million in Turkey, according to the data released by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) yesterday.

The unemployment rate was announced at 9.9 percent in March 2012.

“It’s true, unemployment rose,” Turkish Economy Minister Zafer Çağlayan said in a statement released after the data announcement. “However, this is not because people have lost their jobs, it’s because more people entered into the employment market, thus because participation in the labor force has increased.”

“This should be perceived as a natural result of the global economic conjecture,” the minister said, adding that the slowdown of the national economy had also had an impact on the rise.

As highlighted by the minister, the labor force participation rate (LFPR) stood at as 50.2 percent, with an increase of 1.6 percentage points compared to the same period of the previous year for Turkey in March. Therefore the labor force soared by 1.3 million and reached 27.7 million during the same period. As the number of employed people also increased to 24.9 million, Çağlayan said the economy “has been able to provide employment for 86 percent of this rise.”
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