UPDATE - Turkey's unemployment rate drops in January

UPDATES WITH MORE FIGURES

By Aysu Bicer

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's unemployment rate stood at 13.8% in January, the country’s statistical authority said on Friday.

"The unemployment rate occurred as 13.8% with 0.9 percentage point decrease," according to the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat).

It said the number of unemployed aged 15 and over fell to 4.3 million year-on-year.

Non-agricultural unemployment rate posted a 1.1 percentage point drop to reach 15.7%.

The employment rate stood at 44% with a 0.5 percentage point decrease, it said.

Some 27.2 million people are employed in Turkey, a rise by 109,000 in January 2020.

It also indicated that the labor force participation rate was 51% with a 1.2 percentage point decrease.

The figure of women participating in the workforce went down by 258,000 persons to 10.1 million, while the figure for men went up by 62,000 to 21.5 million in January compared to the same month last year.

Meanwhile, youth unemployment rate between ages 15-24 was realized as 24.5% with a 2.2 percentage point decrease in January, compared with the same month last year.

"The rate of neither in employment nor in education was realized as 25.7% with a 0.2 percentage point increase compared to the same month last year," it noted.

According to the distribution of employment by sector, 16% was employed in agriculture, 20.7% in industry, 5.2% in construction, and 58.1% in services.