Türkiye’s unemployment rate rises to 8.4% in September
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13 oC
Güneşli
13 oC
Güneşli
Türkiye’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose by 0.5 percentage points to 8.4% in September 2026, with the number of unemployed people increasing by 198,000 to nearly 3 million, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) said on Tuesday.
According to TurkStat’s Household Labour Force Survey, the number of unemployed people aged 15 and over reached 2.967 million in September, compared with the previous month.
The unemployment rate stood at 6.9% among men and 11.3% among women, highlighting a significant gap between the two groups.
The number of employed people fell by 49,000 month-on-month to 32.445 million in September, while the seasonally adjusted employment rate declined by 0.1 percentage points to 48.3%.
The employment rate was 65.8% for men and 31.2% for women, according to TurkStat.
Meanwhile, the labour force increased by 149,000 to 35.412 million. The seasonally adjusted labour force participation rate rose by 0.1 percentage points to 52.7%.
The participation rate stood at 70.7% for men, compared with 35.2% for women.
The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate among people aged 15 to 24 climbed by 1.6 percentage points to 14.8% in September.
Youth unemployment stood at 10.4% among men and 23.3% among women, the data showed.
The seasonally and calendar-adjusted average number of actual weekly working hours among employed people fell by 0.1 hours to 42.4 hours in September compared with August.
TurkStat’s composite measure of labour underutilization, which includes unemployment, time-related underemployment and the potential labour force, rose by 0.2 percentage points to 31.2% in September.
The combined rate of time-related underemployment and unemployment stood at 20.5%, while the combined rate of unemployment and the potential labour force reached 20.7%.
The figures indicate that, beyond the headline unemployment rate, a substantial share of Türkiye’s potential workforce remained unemployed, working fewer hours than desired or outside the labour force despite having some attachment to the labour market. (ILKHA)
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Türkiye’s total installed electricity generation capacity reached 127,355 megawatts (MW) as of October 2026, with renewable energy sources accounting for approximately 62% to 62.7% of the country’s total capacity, according to official data from the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources.
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