Turkey’s unemployment rate rises to highest level in five years

ANKARA

DHA Photo

Turkey’s unemployment rate has climbed to its highest level since 2010, as economic activity slowed down in several sectors, the Turkish Statistics Institute (TÜİK) has announced.

Unemployment increased to 11.3 percent in January, up from 10.9 percent in December, TÜİK said on April 15.

The number of those employed in the agriculture and construction sectors fell by 300,000 to 6.5 million, according to the data.

The number of unemployed people aged 15 years old and over rose by 454,000 to 3.2 million during the months of December, January and February.

In the same period, the non-agricultural unemployment rate rose by 1.3 percentage points to 13.4 percent, while the youth unemployment rate, including the 15 to 24 year age group, soared by 2.3 percentage points to 20 percent.

Turkey’s economic growth during the first quarter of the year has slowed down after gross domestic production expanded at a lower-than-expected pace of 2.9 percent in 2014, Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek said.

The recent rise in the unemployment rate is due to an expansion in the workforce, he said.