Turkey: Unemployment rate falls to 10.3 percent

By Tuba Sahin

ANKARA (AA) - The unemployment rate in Turkey drops to 10.3 percent in October, down 1.5 point from the same month previous year, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) announced Monday.

The number of unemployed people, aged 15 and above, in the country declined to nearly 3.3 million last October, a decrease of 360,000 from October 2016, when the unemployment rate stood at 11.8 percent, the statement said.

The figure also showed a 0.3-percentage point drop from the previous month, when unemployment stood at 10.6 percent, according to TurkStat.

October's employment rate rose by 1.4 percentage point, from the same period previous year, to 47.6 percent.

The labor force participation rate was also up by 0.7 percentage point year-on-year, going up to 53.1 percent.

The number of women participating in the workforce climbed 1.1 percentage point from the previous year to 34.2 percent.