Turkey's unemployment rate stands at 14 percent in August

ANKARA-Anadolu Agency

Turkey's unemployment rate stood at 14.0 percent in August, the country's statistical authority announced on Nov. 15.

The unemployment rate climbed 2.9 percentage points year-on-year, Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) said.

The number of jobless people aged 15 and older was 4.65 million, up 980,000 from August 2018.

The youth unemployment rate -- the 15-24 age group -- also rose 6.6 points on an annual basis to 27.4 percent in the month.

TurkStat said non-agricultural unemployment rose 3.5 percentage points to 16.7 percent in the same period.

The unemployment for the 15-64 age group stood at 14.3 percent in August with a 2.9 percentage points rise compared to same month last year.

Data showed that August's employment rate fell 2 percentage point to 46.3 percent.

"The number of employed persons decreased 789,000 to 28.5 million persons in August 2019 compared with the same period of last (2018) year," TurkStat said.

Some 55.4 percent of total employment was in the services sector, 19.6 percent in agriculture, 19.5 percent in industry, and 5.5 percent in construction.

The labor force participation rate (LFPR) in Turkey slipped 0.4 percentage point year-on-year, standing at 53.9 percent.

"The LFPR for male was 73.2 percent with 0.9 percentage point decrease and the rate for female was 35 percent with 0.1 percentage point increase with the same period of last year," it added.