Turkey’s broadly defined unemployment rate rose to 31.2 percent in September, up 0.2 percentage points from August, figures released Tuesday by TurkStat, Turkey’s statistics agency, showed.
The measure counts unemployed people along with those working fewer hours than they want and people who want a job but do not meet the requirements to be classified as unemployed, such as those who have given up looking for work.
The narrower unemployment rate, which focuses on people without a job who are actively seeking work and available to start, rose 0.5 percentage points to 8.4 percent.
Those potential workers comprise people who want a job but are not actively looking, such as those who have given up hope of finding work, along with job seekers who cannot start work immediately.
The number of unemployed people aged 15 and above rose by 198,000 to 2.967 million.
The narrower measure focuses on people without employment who have looked for work in the previous four weeks and are available to start within two weeks. People who want work but have stopped searching are excluded from that count.
Women accounted for 142,000 of the monthly increase in unemployment. Their jobless rate rose 1.1 percentage points to 11.3 percent, compared with an increase of 0.2 points to 6.9 percent among men.
Youth unemployment, covering people aged 15 to 24, increased 1.6 percentage points to 14.8 percent. The rate among young women rose 3.4 points to 23.3 percent, compared with 10.4 percent among young men.
Employment fell by 49,000 to 32.445 million, reducing the employment rate to 48.3 percent. The number of employed women declined by 52,000, while employment among men increased by 3,000.
The employment rate, the share of people aged 15 and above who have a job, stood at 31.2 percent among women and 65.8 percent among men.
The labor force, which comprises employed people and those classified as unemployed, increased by 149,000 to 35.412 million. The participation rate rose 0.1 percentage points to 52.7 percent.
TurkStat has long faced accusations from opposition parties and government critics that it manipulates unemployment and inflation figures to conceal the scale of Turkey’s economic deterioration.
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