Unemployment falls to 10.8 pct in January in Turkey

Turkey's unemployment rate stood at 10.8 percent in January, down 2.2 percentage points from same month last year, the country's statistical authority announced on Monday.

The Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) said the number of unemployed persons aged 15 years and over -- 3.4 million in January -- slipped by 576,000 year-on-year.

Unemployment in December was 10.4 percent.

The male unemployment rate was 9.6 percent, down 2.3 percentage points, and the female unemployment rate was 13.4 percent, down 2 percentage points, the institute said.

Official data also showed that non-agricultural unemployment slipped 2.5 percentage points to 12.7 percent during the same period.

The youth unemployment rate -- the 15-24 age group -- was 19.9 percent, down 4.6 percentage points year-on-year in January.

TurkStat said unemployment for the 15-64 age group was also down 2.2 percentage points to 11.1 percent in the same period.

January's employment rate rose 1.6 percentage point from the same month last year to 46.4 percent.

"The number of employed persons rose by 1.4 million to 28 million persons in the period of January 2018 compared with the same period of the previous year," it said.

More than 55 percent of total employment was in the services sector, 19.9 percent in industry, 17.7 percent in agriculture, and 7 percent in construction.

The labor force participation rate was also up by 0.6 percentage point year-on-year, going up to 52.1 percent.

The number of women participating in the workforce climbed 1.2 percentage points from January 2017 to 33.2 percent in the month.