ANKARA: The unemployment rate stood at 9.9 percent in 2014, the Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat) said without providing comparative data, saying new practices complying with European Union standards made past figures incomparable.
Data released a year ago showed the unemployment rate rising to 9.7 percent in 2013 up from 9.2 percent a year earlier. The non-farming unemployment rate stood at 12 percent in 2014 while the youth unemployment rate, including the 15-24 age group, was 17.9 percent.
Youth jobless figures — showing that one in every five youths between the ages of 15 and 24 is without a job — reflects a major structural problem in Turkish job markets: the government’s failure to create enough jobs for young people, who represent a large part of the country. Certain vocational training and promotional campaigns have in the past failed to satisfactorily add young people to the pool of the employed in Turkey.
The number of unemployed persons aged 15 and above was 2.85 million in 2014. The unemployment rate was 9 percent for male citizens and 11.9 percent for female citizens in 2014. The labor force participation rate was at 71.3 percent for males and 30.3 percent for females in 2014.
Another critical issue is unregistered employment in Turkey. In November, the rate of unregistered employment was 33.9 percent, meaning that one in every three people employed worked without social security benefits.
Of those employed, 5.47 million worked in agriculture and 20.46 million worked in non-farming sectors. In 2014, 21.1 percent of the working population was employed in agriculture, 27.9 percent was employed in the industrial sector and 51 percent in the service sector.
