Unemployment rate according to Turkey's state agency: 12.7 percent

* Photo: Anadolu Agency (AA) - Archive

The Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat), the state agency commissioned with producing official statistics on the country, released its "Labor Force Statistics" for September 2020 today (December 10).

According to the TurkStat figures, the number of unemployed persons aged 15 years old and over decreased by 550 thousand to 4 million 16 thousand persons in Turkey in September when compared with the same period of the previous year. The unemployment rate occurred as 12.7 percent with 1.1 percentage point decrease. Non-agricultural unemployment rate occurred as 14.9 percent with 1.5 percentage point decrease.

Other highlights from the Labor Force Statistics are as follows:

Employment rate: 44.1 percent

The number of employed persons decreased by 733 thousand to 27 million 707 thousand in September compared with the same period in 2019. The employment rate was 44.1 percent, with 2 percentage point decrease.

The number of agricultural employment decreased by 350 thousand persons, industry decreased by 29 thousand and services decreased by 520 thousand persons while construction increased by 166 thousand.

According to the distribution of employment by sector; 18.5 percent was employed in agriculture, 19.9 percent was employed in industry, 6.3 percent wasin construction and 55.3 percent was employed in services.

Labor force participation rate: 50.5 percent

In September 2020, the number of persons in the labor force was 31 million 724 thousand persons, with 1 million 282 thousand persons decrease when compared with the same period of the previous year. Labor force participation rate was 50.5 percent with 3 point decrease.

Unregistered employment rate: 32.2 percent

The ratio of persons working without any social security relating to the main job occurred 32.2 percent with 3.8 percentage point decrease in the period of September 2020 compared with the same period last year.

The rate of unregistered employment was 20.3 percent in September, which marked a 3.3 percentage point decrease in the non-agricultural sector compared to the same period of the previous year.

For the 15-64 age group, the unemployment rate occurred as 12.9 percent with 1.2 percentage point decrease and non-agricultural unemployment rate occurred as 15 percent with 1.5 percentage point decrease compared to the same period of the previous year.

In this age group, employment rate occurred as 49 percent with 1.8 percentage point decrease and labor force participation rate occurred as 56.2 percent with 2.9 percentage point decrease.

Youth employment: 24.3 percent

According to the TurkStat, the youth unemployment rate of the ones aged 15-24 years was 24.3 percent with 1.8 percentage point decrease and the youth employment rate was 31.6 percent with 2.4 percentage point decrease compared with last September.

In the same period, the labor force participation rate realized as 41.8 percent with 4.2 percentage point decrease. The rate of neither in employment nor in education realized as 29.1 percent with 0.5 percentage point increase compared with the same period of the previous year.

Seasonally adjusted unemployment

Seasonally adjusted unemployment rate realized as 12.7 percent with 0.4 percentage point decrease. The number of unemployed persons decreased by 125 thousand to 3 million 944 thousand persons.

Seasonally adjusted employment rate realized as 43.3 percent with 0.3 percentage point increase. The number of employed persons estimated as 27 million 200 thousand persons with 226 thousand persons increase compared with the same period of the previous year.

Seasonally adjusted labor force participation rate was 49.6 percent with 0.1 percentage point increase. The number of labor force estimated as 31 million 144 thousand persons with 101 thousand persons increase.

According to the seasonally adjusted number of employment by sectors, employment in agriculture decreased by 37 thousand persons while industry increased by 57 thousand persons, construction increased by 15 thousand persons and services increased by 191 thousand persons. (SD)