Minister: Turkey reaches highest employment volume in 88 years

Turkey's economy minister said on Monday that Turkey had reached the highest employment volume in 88 years. Zafer Caglayan said Turkey had reached the highest employment volume in 88 years, thanks to 24,953,000 million working people.

"Employment figures indicate that unemployment has declined rapidly in Turkey and Turkey is in a better situation than 12 EU countries," Caglayan said. Caglayan's remarks came after Turkish statistics authority, TurkStat, made public unemployment figures in July 2011. Accordingly, unemployment in Turkey was down 1.5 points to 9.1 percent in July 2011 period which covers the months of June, July and August.

TurkStat said the number of jobless dropped to 2,509 thousand from 2,782 thousand while the number of the employed rose to 24,953 thousand from 23,478 thousand in this period. Unemployment rate in urban areas was 11.5 percent and it was 4.7 percent in rural areas.

Work force participation rate was 51.2 percent and employment rate was 46.5 percent.

Non-agricultural unemployment dropped to 11.8 percent from 13.6 percent as youth unemployment was down to 18.3 percent from 19.5 percent.

"Turkey's 10.2 percent economic growth in the first half of 2011 and rise in its exports around 21.9 percent in the first eight months of the year has dropped unemployment," Caglayan said.

Caglayan also said Turkey had became the OECD member state where work force participation rate rose most rapidly in the post-global economic crisis era.


/World Bulletin/