Data from the Turkish Statistics Institute revealed that Turkey's unemployment was 9.1% in October, a 0.3% MoM increase over the preceding month when it hit its lowest level since 2001.

The rate of unemployment in September 2011 was 8.8%, the lowest level since a 2001 domestic financial crisis. The rate rose slightly to 9.1% in the 10th month of 2011, representing, however, a 2.1% decline from the same month of 2010.

The government's Medium Term Economic Program estimates the year end unemployment in Turkey for 2011 at 12%. The number of unemployed in Turkey declined by 447,000 in October 2011 over the 10th month of 2010, while the number of persons employed jumped 1.5 million in the same 12 months, 1.12 million of this increase went to non agricultural industry. The number of unemployed was 2.45 million as of October 2011 and the number of employed totaled 24.48 million. The unemployment rate was 11.1% in urban areas and reached 5.3% in rural areas with a 2.5% and a 1.1% decline in October over the same month of 2010, respectively.

In October 2011, of those who were employed, 25.7% were employed in agriculture, 19% in industry, 7.2% in construction and 48% were employed in services. Employment in agriculture showed no change in October, while the number of those employed in construction increased by 0.6% and the number in industry decreased by 0.6% over the same month of the preceding year. Employment in services experienced a nascent 0.1% decline in the given period.

According to seasonally adjusted TurkStat figures, the number of employed in two of Turkey's major sectors of construction and industry dropped by 95,000 and 50,000 in October over September 2011, respectively.

Drawing attention to this decline, Bahçeşehir University Center for Economic and Social Research said in a report that increases in the number of employed in services and agriculture compensated for the loss experienced in construction and industry in October 2011.

Turkey's unemployment rate reached a worrisome 15% in 2009 when the global financial crisis hit the world economy the hardest. Last year, the government's fight against inflation paid off, and the unemployment rate was able to be brought down to as low as 10.5%. The rate of unemployment fell to single digits after three years for the first time in April 2011 at 9.9%.

(Sourced from www.todayszaman.com)