The unemployment rate in Turkey reached 12.1 percent in November, the highest since March 2010, as revealed by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) yesterday.
The rate, maintaining a steady upward trend over a seven-month period, rose by 0.3 percent from October 2016 and by 1.6 percent compared to the same month of the previous year.
Meanwhile, the number of unemployed people aged 15 and over, was 3.7 million in November 2016, 590,000 more compared to November 2015.
On the other hand, the number of employed people rose by 391,000 from a year earlier to reach 27.07 million, which showed that the Turkish economy kept creating jobs but failed to keep up with the growing number of jobseekers.
The labor force participation rate (LFPR) stood at 52.1 percent, up 0.9 percentage point or 980,000. The LFPR for males was 71.9 percent, representing a 0.6 percentage point increase, while the rate for females was 32.7 percent, a 1.1 percentage point climb compared to the same period of the previous year. According to Capital FX's Deputy Chief Researcher Enver Erkan, the unemployment rate in December may hit 12.5 percent, bringing the 2016 average to a 10.9 percent. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's nationwide campaign to increase the employment rate in Turkey, which has received support from prominent representatives of the Turkish business world, would have made a positive effect on the figures, according to experts. Erkan said that any healing effect on the job market would only be observed in data set to be released in March.
