Turkey’s broadly defined unemployment rate remained above 30 percent in April, official data showed, indicating continued strain in the labor market despite only a slight increase in the narrow unemployment rate.
TurkStat, which released its “Labour Force Statistics, April 2026” report on Thursday, said its broad measure, which includes discouraged workers, underemployed people and others excluded from the standard definition, fell 1.2 percentage points from the previous month to 30.1 percent.
The broadly defined unemployment rate had risen to a record 31.5 percent in March.
By contrast, the narrowly defined unemployment rate rose 0.1 percentage points to 8.2 percent. The number of unemployed people aged 15 and above declined by 5,000 to 2.868 million.
Unemployment stood at 6.8 percent among men and 11 percent among women.
Employment fell by 356,000 to 32.166 million, pushing the employment rate down 0.6 percentage points to 48.1 percent. The rate was 65.4 percent for men compared to 31.2 percent for women.
The labor force declined by 361,000 to 35.034 million, with the participation rate falling from 53 percent to 52.4 percent.
Youth unemployment among people aged 15 to 24 fell 0.8 percentage points to 14.5 percent, with the rate at 12 percent for young men and 19.4 percent for young women.
The average weekly actual working time rose by 0.3 hours to 42.1 hours in April.
Separate data from DİSK-AR, the research arm of the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions (DİSK), showed that the number of broadly defined unemployed people stood at 12.850 million in April.
Although official data showed only a slight increase in the narrow unemployment rate, TurkStat’s figures continue to face skepticism from critics and opposition figures, who accuse the institution of understating the extent of economic deterioration and labor market stress in Turkey.