Turkey's unemployment rate down slightly in September

Turkey’s unemployment rate fell to 12.7% in September with a decrease of 1.1 percentage points year-on-year, the national statistical body announced Thursday.

The number of unemployed young people aged 15 and over decreased by 550,000 to 4.16 million as of September compared to the same month last year, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) said.

The non-agricultural unemployment rate also fell by 1.5 percentage points to 14.9%, year-on-year this month.

In September the youth unemployment rate, which includes the 15-24 age group, decreased by 1.8 percentage points to 24.3%. The unemployment rate for the 15-64 age group was revealed to be 12.9% with a 1.2 percentage point decrease.

Meanwhile, the employment rate stood at 44.1% with a fall of 2 percentage points annually.

The distribution of employment by sector was 55.3% in the services sector, 19.9% in industry, 18.5% in agriculture and 6.3% in construction, according to TurkStat data.

The labor force participation rate went down by 3 percentage points year-on-year to 50.5%.

Turkey's labor force decreased by 1.28 million year-on-year to 31.72 million as of September.

The labor force participation rate for men dropped by 3.1 percentage points to 69.5%, while it stood at 31.9% for women after an annual decline of 3 percentage points.

The rate of unregistered employment – those working without social security related to their principal occupation – was 32.2% in September, down by 3.8 percentage points on a yearly basis.

As laid out in its economic plan, the Turkish government's unemployment rate target for 2020 is 13.8%, with the figure projected to drop to 10.9% by 2023.