Türkiye’s unemployment rate edged down 0.3 percentage points month-over-month to 8.1% in March, official data showed on Wednesday.
The number of unemployed people fell by 96,000 to 2.87 million in March, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) said.
The unemployment rate was estimated 6.8% for men and 10.7% for women, the statistics office said.
The TurkStat data showed that the labor force participation rate increased 0.1 points to 52.8% in March. The institute also noted that the number of persons in the labor force was 35.3 million, up by 129,000 over the same period.
The youth unemployment rate covering the 15-24 age group was at 15.3%, down 0.5 percentage points compared to the previous month.
Commenting on the data, Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz highlighted that the unemployment rate remains in single digits despite the regional tensions.
“Thanks to the program we implement in coordination with our institutions and in an effective manner, the unemployment rate remains stable and at a single-digit level despite the tensions in our region,” Yılmaz said in a written statement on X.
“To limit the impacts of the war on our economy and thus on our employment, we have prepared and implemented measures tailored to the needs of our sectors in many areas, from tourism to industry, trade to finance, in coordination with our institutions,” he added.
Moreover, he touched upon the recently unveiled steps, which aim to boost the appeal of the Turkish economy, conveying the aim of their positive impact on employment.
“In addition to the policies we are implementing to facilitate SMEs’ (small and medium-sized enterprises) access to finance, encourage high-tech investments, provide support to labor-intensive sectors, and expand financing opportunities for exporters, we anticipate that the steps we will take within the scope of the ‘Turkiye Century Strong Center for Investment Program’ announced last week by our president, will pave the way for new investments and increase employment,” he noted.
“Through the policies we are pursuing, we aim to further strengthen the labor market, reduce unemployment and permanently increase social welfare,”he concluded.
Source: dailysabah