Turkey's unemployment stood at 11 percent in 2018

Turkey's unemployment rate stood at 11 percent in 2018, rising 0.1 percent year-on-year, Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) announced Monday.

The number of unemployed persons increased by 83,000 last year, reaching nearly 3.54 million people.

Unemployment among men rose 0.1 percentage points to 9.5 percent, while for women, it decreased 0.2 percentage points to 13.9 percent.

Non-agricultural unemployment was 12.9 percent and the youth unemployment rate, comprising of the 15-24 age cohort, was 20.3 percent in 2018.

About 549,000 new jobs were created last year, TurkStat said.

"The number of employed persons aged 15 years old and over realized as 28.74 million persons with a 549,000-person increase," TurkStat said.

It announced that the employment rate was 47.4 percent -- 65.7 percent for male, and 29.4 percent for female -- last year, up 0.3 percentage points versus 2017.

Of those who were employed in 2018, 18.4 percent were employed in agriculture, 19.7 percent in industry, 6.9 percent in construction and 54.9 percent were employed in service sector.

The labor force participation rate also increased by 0.4 percentage points to reach 54.2 percent -- 32.27 million persons -- year-on-year in 2018.

The rate was 72.7 percent for men and 34.2 percent for women.

Zehra Zümrüt Selçuk, the government minister responsible for family, labor and social services, said labor force participation and employment had reached a 17-year high last year.

She underlined that the government efforts to raise female employment would continue.

"The unemployment rate was 11 percent in 2018 while our target in the new economic program was 11.3 percent," the minister noted.

Turkey has launched a new campaign at the end of February for raising employment by supporting businesses.