ANKARA: Turkey’s unemployment rate held steady at 10.2 percent in June, which covered the May-July period, unchanged from the levels of one month and one year earlier, data from the Turkish Statistics Institute (TÜİK) showed on Sept. 15. The non-agricultural unemployment rate stood at 12.2 percent on average during the May-July period, the data showed, also unchanged from both a month and a year earlier. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 11.1 percent with a 0.2 percentage point year-on-year decrease. The unemployment rate started the year at 13 percent in January. It dropped to 12.6 percent in February, 11.7 percent in March, 10.5 percent in April, and 10.2 in May.
Finance Minister Naci Ağbal said the June unemployment rate confirmed a recovery in the Turkish economic activity. “We have seen the impact of the expansion in the industrial and construction sectors on the unemployment data. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 11.1 percent, with a 0.2 percentage point year-on-year decrease, which is good,” Ağbal told state-run Anadolu Agency on Sept. 15. The number of jobless people aged 15 and over in the country rose to 3.25 million, up 124,000 from June last year, TÜİK stated. While the youth unemployment rate including persons aged 15-24 was 20.6 percent with a 1.2 percentage point increase, the unemployment rate for persons aged 15-64 was unchanged at 10.4 percent. The employment rate rose 0.9 point to 48 percent – 28.7 million people – from the same period last year. Labor force participation also increased by 1 percentage point year-on-year to 53.4 percent.
