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The Turkish unemployment rate dropped 1.6 percentage points to 9.4 percent in May 2011 in comparison to the same month last year, Turkey’s statistics authority, TurkStat, said Monday. The statistics showed youth unemployment decreased as well. Some 16.6 percent of the total labor force was between 15 and 24 years of age.
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Turkish Science, Industry and Technology Minister Nihat Ergün on Monday welcomed a drop in unemployment figures. “Unemployment figures dropped to 9.4 percent as of May. Continuation in the downward trend is pleasing,” Ergün said while speaking on broadcaster Bloomberg HT.
The number of jobless dropped from 2.84 million in May 2010 to 2.55 million people in the same period of 2011, while the number of employed increased from 23 million in May 2010 to 24.45 million people in May 2011.
The unemployment rate in urban areas was 11.6 percent while it was 5.4 percent in rural areas. The unemployment fell by 2.1 points to 9.9 percent on 2010-2011 year-to-year comparisons.
More people in Turkey joined the labor force, which was reflected in a participation rate increase of 1.1 points to 50.5 percent in April and May this year. Young people found more jobs as well; youth unemployment was down 2.3 points to 17.5 percent. Young people made up 16.6 percent of the total labor force while the numbers of workers with no social security also dropped to 42.7 percent, marking a 0.9 percent decrease over the same period a year earlier.
Özğür Altuğ, the chief economist at BGC Partners in Turkey, disagreed with the minister. “Despite the improvement in [the non-seasonally adjusted] unemployment rate, we see that the improvement in the labor market [slowed down] in May compared to previous months,” he said in a note to investors.
“For instance, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate increased to 10.3 percent in May from 10.1 percent in April, reaching its highest level in the last four months,” he said. “Besides, the year-on-year improvement speed of unemployment reached its lowest level in the last seven months.” |
Source : hurriyetdailynews.com
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