The unemployment rate in Türkiye dropped 0.1 percentage points month-over-month to 8.6% in March, official data showed on Friday, back to the decade low that it touched in October last year.
The number of jobless dropped 19,000 from the prior month to 3.06 million as of March, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) said.
The unemployment rate was 6.8% for men and 12% for women in March.
Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz said the government’s medium-term economic program “continues to work,and the economy keeps generating employment.”
The unemployment rate decreased by 1.4 percentage points compared to March of last year, Yılmaz wrote on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
Ha also highlighted the ongoing increase in the number of employed individuals, which rose by 139,000 compared to the previous month, reaching 32.58 million.
The employment rate rose 0.2 percentage points 49.5% as of this March, the TurkStat said.
The data showed the labor force participation rate rose to 54.2%, up 0.2 percentage points from a month ago.
A seasonally adjusted measure of labor under-utilization fell 0.4 percentage points to 24.1%, the TurkStat said.
The youth unemployment rate – ages 15-24 – dropped by 0.4 percentage points to 15.1% in the month. The rate was 11.7% for men and 21.2% for women.
Yılmaz said the jobless rate among youth has reached approximately the lowest level in 12 years.
“We will continue to follow employment-friendly policies that activate the workforce potential, especially focusing on youth and women, alongside policies that maintain economic stability in the upcoming period,” the vice president said.
dailysabah.com