Türkiye's unemployment rate dipped slightly to 8.6% in March 2024, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute (TSI) in a statement released on Friday. This marks a decrease of 0.1 percentage points compared to the previous month.

The TSI report, based on the Household Labour Force Survey, highlights positive trends in both employment and labor force participation. The number of employed individuals increased by 139,000 to 32.6 million in March, pushing the employment rate up to 49.5%, a 0.2 percentage point gain. This growth was primarily driven by men, whose employment rate reached 66.9%, while the rate for women stood at 32.5%.

The labor force participation rate also rose by 0.2 percentage points to 54.2% in March. This translates to an increase of 121,000 people joining the labor force, bringing the total to 35.6 million. Male participation remained high at 71.8%, while female participation increased to 36.9%.

Encouragingly, the youth unemployment rate among those aged 15-24 witnessed a decline of 0.4 percentage points to 15.1%. This decrease was observed for both genders, with the rate dropping to 11.7% for men and 21.2% for women.

The report further revealed an increase in average weekly working hours. Seasonally adjusted figures showed an increase of 0.3 hours compared to the previous month, reaching 43.8 hours per week on average for employed individuals.

On a broader measure of underutilized labor, the seasonally adjusted composite measure of labour underutilization rate fell to 24.1% in March. This represents a 0.4 percentage point decrease from the previous month. The report breaks this measure down into two components: the combined rate of time-related underemployment and unemployment (16.1%) and the combined rate of unemployment and potential labor force (17.3%).