ANKARA: Data released by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) on Monday showed that Turkey’s unemployment rate was up by 1.9 percentage points year-on-year in January. Turkey’s unemployment rate reached 13 percent in January, to hit 7-year-high. The unemployment rate was the highest seen since February 2010, when it stood at 13.5 percent. Unemployment in the non-agricultural sector hit 15.2 percent, a 2.2-percentage-point rise compared to the same month last year.
January’s employment rate was up 0.2 percent from the same period last year, with the country adding 397,000 jobs. The employment rate came in at 44.8 percent with the number of employed persons amounting to 26.7 million. The labor force participation rate also rose by 0.8 percentage points year-on-year, reaching 51.5 percent. The number of jobless people in the country aged 15 or over rose to nearly 4 million in January this year, an increase of 695,000 from January 2016, according to the statement. The rate also saw a 0.3 percentage point rise from December 2016.
