Unemployment in Turkey at 13.9% in April

ANKARA

Unemployment in Turkey came in at 13.9% this April, up 0.9 percentage points from the previous month, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) said Thursday.

The number of unemployed age 15 and over rose 275,000 month-on-month to 4.5 million in April, TurkStat said in a statement.

The youth unemployment rate – age 15-24 – climbed to 25.6% in April, up 0.1 percentage point from the previous month.

The employment rate slipped 0.4 percentage points to 44.2%, or 28.1 million people, during the same period.

Broken down by sector, 54.2% of people were employed in services, 21.3% in industry, 18.0% in agriculture, and 6.4% in construction, it noted.

The labor force participation rate stood at 51.3% this April, a rise of 0.1 percentage points from March.

Some 32.6 million people made up the labor force, adding 83,000 workers in April 2021 from the previous month, it said.

The report said the number of women participating in the workforce also climbed 0.3 percentage points from March to 32.6%.

The main reading was up 0.2 percentage points from April 2020, the TurkStat data showed.