UPDATE - Turkiye's unemployment rate at 11.2% in December 2021

UPDATES WITH MORE DETAILS AND COMMENT FROM ECONOMIST

By Tuba Sahin

ANKARA (AA) – Unemployment in Turkiye reached 11.2% last December, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) said on Thursday.

The reading was down 0.1 percentage point from November's revised data, TurkStat said in a statement.

The number of unemployed age 15 and over rose by 2,000 month-on-month in December 2021 to 3.8 million.

In December 2020, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 12.7%, TurkStat data showed.

During the same period, employment climbed 0.3 percentage point to 47%, or 30.1 million people.

Some 33.9 million people made up the labor force in December, a rise of 238,000 people from the previous month.

The labor force participation rate stood at 52.9% in the month, up 0.3 percentage point from November.

The report said the number of women participating in the workforce also climbed 0.3 percentage points month-on-month to 34.5%.

In 2021, Turkiye saw its highest unemployment rate in April, with 13.4%, while the lowest was in June, with 10.6%.

Broken down by sector, some 55.4% of people were employed in services, 21.7% in industry, 16.8% in agriculture, and 6% in construction, it noted.

Enver Erkan, chief economist at Istanbul-based private investment firm Tera Yatirim, stressed that people who were laid off from their regular jobs during the coronavirus period had to take temporary jobs in the service sector in a bid to maintain their earnings.

"This actually leads to a lack of productivity and efficiency, which is the main need of the economy at the point of transformation and sustainable growth, especially in the manufacturing sector in industry," Erkan noted.

Pointing to Turkiye's 50.4% hike in the minimum wage as of Jan. 1 and record high inflation rates, Erkan said the combination of falling real wages along with high inflation is a problem.

"Factors such as companies' cost management and the desire to change jobs among individuals may limit new labor force participation or cause an increase in the idle labor force. There are some difficulties in creating a permanent job in the coming months."