Turkey’s jobless rate declined for a second month as the economy recovered from an initial wave of the coronavirus.
The rate of unemployment fell to 12.7 percent in the three months to October from 13.2 percent in the equivalent period to September, the Turkish Statistical Institute said on Thursday. It had stood at 13.4 percent in August.
Turkey has barred companies from laying off workers, requiring them to place staff on unpaid leave or state-sponsored short working weeks instead, since the COVID-19 pandemic struck in March. That means the headline unemployment number does not reflect the true impact of the virus on the jobs market.
The unemployment rate in Turkey had stood at 13.8 percent in January and 13.6 percent in February, prior to the introduction of the measures.
The labour force shrunk by 1.28 million people to 31.7 million in the three months to October from the same period of 2019, as more people said that they did not work and were not looking for a job.
The number of people employed dropped by 733,000 from a year earlier to 27.7 million. Turkey has a population of 62.8 million.
Youth unemployment stood at 24.3 percent in October compared with 26.1 percent in the three months to September, the statistics institute said.
Ahval