Turkey: Unemployment rate at 14.1% in March

ANKARA (AA): Turkey’s unemployment rate stood at 14.1% in March this year, the country’s statistical authority announced Monday. The unemployment rate rose by four percentage points year-on-year, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) said. On a yearly basis, the number of unemployed people aged 15 and older surged 1.33 million to 4.54 million as of March.

“In the same period, [the] non-agricultural unemployment rate occurred as 16.1% with [a] 4.2 percentage point increase. “While [the] youth unemployment rate including persons aged 15-24 was 25.2% with [a] 7.5 percentage point increase, the unemployment rate for persons aged 15-64 occurred as 14.3% with [a] 4 percentage point increase,” according to TurkStat.

In February, the country’s unemployment rate was 14.7% with 4.73 million unemployed people aged 15 and above, marking a 4.1 percentage point annual rise. Official figures revealed that the number of employed people in Turkey amounted to 27.8 million, with some 700,000-fall year-on-year. “The employment rate occurred as 45.4% with [a] 1.7 percentage point decrease,” the institute said.

“According to the distribution of employment by sector; 17.3% was employed in agriculture, 19.7% was in industry, 5.5% was in construction and 57.4% was in services,” it added. Turkey’s labour force climbed 630,000 on a yearly basis, totaling nearly 32.4 million people as of March. The institute said the labor force participation rate in Turkey was 52.9% in the same month, 71.7% for men and 34.4% for women.

TurkStat also noted that the rate of unregistered employment people working without social security related to their principal occupation was 33.9% in March, rising 1.5 percentage points year-on-year.

Last year, the unemployment rate hovered between 9.6% and 13.5%. Since 2014, the highest figures were seen in January and February this year with 14.7%, while the lowest was in May 2014 with 8.8%. The institute will release its next report on the subject on July 16.