The number of unemployed, according to TurkStat data, was 569,000 higher in October than the same month of 2008, totaling 3.29 million. This represented a 1.8 percent increase. The report revealed that the unemployment rate in urban areas increased by 2.5 percentage points and touched 15.5 percent in October, while it was 8.2 percent in rural areas, 0.6 percentage points more than in October 2008.
Between October 2008 and October 2009, Turkey’s total non-institutional population (i.e., excluding students, prisoners and those serving in the military) increased by 813,000, reaching 70.77 million; in this group, the number of those of working age increased by 860,000, reaching 51.93 million.
The labor force participation rate, having increased by 1.2 percentage points over the same month of the previous year, reached 48.8 percent in October. For the same month, the labor force participation rate of males totaled 71.2 percent, rising by 0.3 percentage points over October 2008, while the labor force participation rate of females increased by 2 percentage points to 27.1 percent in October 2009 compared to the same month of 2008.
When assessing the active labor force and unemployment rate, TurkStat does not count those who are not actively seeking work. During the same period, the number of employed individuals increased by 452,000 and reached 22.19 million. The number of workers in the agricultural sector increased by 296,000, while the nonagricultural sector enjoyed an increase of 156,000 in employment.
Of the population working in October, 25.3 percent were employed in agriculture, 19.4 percent in industry, 6.3 percent in construction and 49 percent in the service sector. The figures show a 0.8 percentage point increase in agricultural sector workers, a 0.2 percentage point increase in construction sector workers and a 0.3 percentage point increase in service sector workers during the period between October 2008 and October 2009. Industrial labor decreased by 1.3 percentage points in the given period.
