Turkey’s unemployment drops to 5-month low with 10.6 percent in March


Unemployment in Turkey has dropped to 10.6 percent in March, indicating a 0.6 percent decrease compared to the previous month and the lowest rate within the last five months, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) announced on Monday.According to the TÜİK, the number of unemployed persons has increased by 322,000 compared with last year to 3.069 million in March. The number of employed persons has reached 25,953,000 million in the same month.Young unemployment has increased by 1.9 percent to 18.6 percent.Non-agricultural sectors drove the decrease in unemployment by 491,000 additional jobs in March, while services sector having the largest share with 52.6 percent, followed by 20.5 percent employment in industry, 20 percent in agriculture and 6.9 percent in construction.The labor force participation rate increased 0.5 percent in March, reaching 50.4 percent, and 692,000 people joined the labor force, which now accounts for more than 29 million people. The main driver of the increase was female workers. The male labor force participation rate remained the same at 70.6 percent while the female labor force participation rate increased 0.9 percent to 30.7 percent compared the same month of 2014. Meanwhile, the amount of people who worked without any social security related to their main job decreased 1.7 percent to 32.7 percent.DETAILS TO FOLLOW…