Türkiye's unemployment rate dropped slightly by 0.1 percentage points month-over-month to 8.5% in December, official data showed on Monday.
The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate stood at 8.5% in the last month of the year, according to the data from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat). This was down from 8.6% in November and below the 8.8% recorded a year earlier.
It was the lowest jobless rate since February 2012, as the number of unemployed individuals aged 15 years old and over dropped by 39,000 to 3.03 million.
TurkStat reported that the unemployment rate for men remained stable at 6.9% compared to last month, while it dropped to 11.4% from 11.7% for women.
Meanwhile, employment fell by 54,000 to 32.72 million, lowering the employment rate by 0.1 percentage point to 49.5%, compared to 49.6% in November.
The employment rate for men stood at 66.9%, while for women it was 32.4%.
Additionally, the labor force participation rate edged down to 54.1% from 54.2%.
On the other hand, youth unemployment, defined as those aged 15-24, rose by 0.5 percentage points compared to the previous month to 16.3%, according to the data.
