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Turkey’s broadly defined unemployment rate was 28.6 percent in December, with a 0.5 percentage point decrease compared to the previous month, according to official figures from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat).
TurkStat released its “Labour Force Statistics, December 2025” report on Thursday.
According to the data, the number of narrowly defined unemployed people, which refers to individuals aged 15 and above who were not employed during the referenced period, actively searched for a job through at least one job-seeking channel in the past four weeks and were ready to start work within the next two weeks, decreased by 286,000 to 2.73 million in November compared to the previous month, while the narrowly defined unemployment rate decreased by 0.8 percentage points to 7.7 percent.
Broadly defined unemployment, which also includes those who have lost hope of finding a job, are not actively seeking employment but are ready to work, seasonal workers and those with time-related underemployment, decreased from 29.1 percent in November.
The number of employed persons decreased by 42,000 to 32.685 million in November compared to the previous month. Employment stood at 49.1 percent, 66.8 percent among men and 31.7 percent among women.
The labor force decreased by 328,000 to 35.421 million and the labor force participation rate decreased by 0.5 percentage points to 53.2 percent.
Although TurkStat data paint a positive picture of the unemployment rate in general, the institution’s statistics are met with skepticism. It faces frequent accusations of masking the real unemployment and inflation rates in order to hide the economic deterioration in the country.