Turkey’s unemployment rate eased to 14.1 percent in the February-April period, declining from its highest level in nearly a decade, data from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) showed on Monday.
Non-agricultural joblessness also declined to 16.1 percent in the same period, the data showed.
In the previous January-March period, unemployment stood at 14.7 percent while non-agricultural unemployment was at 16.9 percent.
The youth unemployment rate including persons aged 15-24 was 25.2 percent with a 7.5 percentage point increase, and the unemployment rate for persons aged 15-64 occurred as 14.3 percent with a four percent increase.
In February, the country’s unemployment rate was 14.7 percent with 4.73 million unemployed people aged 15 and above, marking a 4.1 percentage point annual rise.
Opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) Deputy Unal Demirtas accused the country’s business foundation of intentionally hiding real figures from public.
In an economic report prepared recently by his party, he said the number of real unemployed is 8.47 million people.
Head of Turkey’s Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions Arzu Cerkezoglu, for her part, said the decline in employment rates made it look more tragic for those who have recently graduated.
Official figures revealed that the number of employed people in Turkey amounted to 27.8 million, with some 700,000-fall year-on-year.
"The employment rate occurred as 45.4 percent with a 1.7 percentage point decrease," the institute said.
"According to the distribution of employment by sector, 17.3 percent were employed in agriculture, 19.7 percent in industry, 5.5 percent in construction and 57.4 percent in services," it added.
Turkey's labor force climbed 630,000 on a yearly basis, totaling nearly 32.4 million people as of March.
The institute said the labor force participation rate in Turkey was 52.9 percent in the same month, 71.7 percent for men and 34.4 percent for women.
TurkStat also noted that the rate of unregistered employment – people working without social security related to their principal occupation – was 33.9 percent in March, rising 1.5 percentage points year-on-year.
