Turkey’s broadly defined unemployment rate increased to 31 percent in May, official data showed, indicating continued strain in the labor market despite no increase in the narrow unemployment rate.
TurkStat, which released its “Labour Force Statistics, May 2026” report on Tuesday, said its broad measure, which includes discouraged workers, underemployed people and others excluded from the standard definition, increased 0.9 percentage points from the previous month to 31.0 percent.
The broadly defined unemployment rate had risen to a record 31.5 percent in March before falling to 30.1 percent in April.
By contrast, the narrowly defined unemployment rate showed no change at 8.2 percent. The number of unemployed people aged 15 and above increased by 9,000 to 2.888 million.
Unemployment stood at 7 percent among men and 10.5 percent among women.
Employment increased by 285,000 to 32.463 million, pushing the employment rate up 0.4 percentage points to 48.5 percent. The rate was 66.1 percent for men compared to 31.4 percent for women.
The labor force declined by 361,000 to 35.345 million, with the participation rate increasing from 52.4 percent to 52.8 percent.
Youth unemployment among people aged 15 to 24 increased 0.4 percentage points to 14.8 percent, with the rate at 11.2 percent for young men and 21.8 percent for young women.
The average weekly actual working time rose by 0.2 hours to 42.4 hours in April.
Although official data showed no 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.