ISTANBUL: The Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) announced on Monday that Turkey’s unemployment rate was 11.8 percent in October 2016, a rise of 1.3 percent in unemployment compared to the same period of the previous year. TÜİK said the number of unemployed people in Turkey rose by around 500,000, and amounted to 3.647 million in total. TÜİK statistics about employment study people who are over the age of 15 in Turkey. In the same period, the unemployment in non-agricultural sectors was assessed at 14.1 percent, a rise of 1.5 percent.
Unemployment among the youth, referring to the group of people aged between 15-24, was 21.2 percent, a 1.9 percent rise compared to the previous year. In the 15-64 age range, the joblessness rate was assessed at 12 percent, an increase of 1.3 percent. The overall number of employed people in Turkey was 27.267 million people in October 2016, corresponding to 46.2 percent of the population available on the job market. Despite an increase of 411,000 people compared to the previous year, the global rate of 46.2 percent of employed people did not change as a result of a rise in the population of people available on the job market.
The average unemployment rate in 19 states of the eurozone is at 9.8 percent in November, while the average rate for the EU-28 is 8.3, decreasing from respective rates of 10.5 and 9 percent. With the last increase, the Turkish unemployment has reached a similar rate to Italy, which is at 11.9 percent in November. Greece, Spain and the Greek administration of South Cyprus are the countries which scored a higher joblessness rate than Turkey.
