UPDATE - Turkey's unemployment rate falls to 10.1 pct in March

ADDS MORE OFFICIAL DATA

By Diyar Guldogan

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's unemployment rate stood at 10.1 percent in March, falling 1.6 percentage points on a yearly basis, the country's statistical authority said on Monday.

TurkStat said the number of unemployed persons aged 15 and over -- 3.2 million last March -- decreased 432,000 year-on-year.

"In the same period, non-agricultural unemployment rate occurred as 11.9 percent with a 1.8 percentage point decrease," TurkStat said.

"While the youth unemployment rate including persons aged 15-24 was 17.7 percent with a 3.7 percentage point decrease, the unemployment rate for persons aged 15-64 occurred as 10.3 percent with a 1.7 percentage point decrease."

The number of employed people rose by some 1 million to nearly 10.3 million over the same period, pushing the employment rate up to 47.1 percent with a 1 percentage points annual increase, the institute added.

Breaking down employment by sector, 17.7 percent of people are employed in agriculture, 19.7 percent in industry, 7.3 percent in construction, and 55.3 percent in services, TurkStat said.

Official data showed that the labor force participation rate (LFPR) was 52.4 percent -- a 0.2-percentage point increase year-on-year -- while the number of people in the labor force reached 31.7 million -- up 578,000.

The male LFPR stood at 71.8 percent -- down 0.1 percentage point -- while the female rate was 33.4 percent -- up 0.5 percentage points on a yearly basis.

Meanwhile, the rate of unregistered employment -- people working without social security related to their principal occupation -- stood at 32.4 percent, a drop of 0.7 percentage points year-on-year, TurkStat added.

The next data on this subject will be released on July 16.