ISTANBUL

Türkiye’s unemployment rate decreased to 8.5% in October, the country’s statistical authority said Friday.

The rate was down from September's 8.6%, according to data by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat).

The number of unemployed people aged 15 and over was down by 27,000 to 3.03 million in October.

Joblessness stood at 7% among men and 11.3% among women in the same period.

Meanwhile, employment increased, with 185,000 more people working, bringing the total number of employed to 32.77 million.

The overall employment rate was up to 49.2%, including 66.5% for men and 32.4% for women.

The labor force also increased by 157,000 to 35.8 million, with the participation rate at 53.8%.

Youth unemployment—covering those aged 15 to 24—rose 0.2 percentage points from September to 15.6% in October. It was 12.9% for men and 20.6% for women.

In the third quarter of the year, the unemployment rate also stood at 8.5% on average.

Commenting on the data, Türkiye's Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz said the strong outlook in the Turkish labor market continued in October, and the unemployment rate, which has remained in single digits for 30 months, reinforced confidence in the economy.

"In addition to incentive programs implemented for the employment of young people and women, we continue to take steps to facilitate women's working lives, accelerate young people's transition from education to employment, and reduce idle labor within the framework of our inclusive development goal," Yilmaz wrote on Turkish social media platform NSosyal.

He said they expect Türkiye to be among the high-income countries by 2025, emphasizing that they will continue to support employment in labor-intensive sectors while implementing policies to strengthen the qualifications and skills of human capital and increase labor productivity to ensure its sustainable position.

"With the increase in labor force participation rate projected in our program over the next three years, we expect employment to increase by an average of 842,000 people annually, and the unemployment rate to gradually decline to 7.8% in 2028," he said.

"We aim to increase the purchasing power of our citizens and improve income distribution through a sustainable and employment-supporting growth path aligned with our disinflation program," Yilmaz added.