Unemployment rate slips to lowest level after crisis

The unemployment rate fell to its lowest level since the 2001 crisis. Turkey's unemployment rate dropped to 8.8 percent in September from 11.3 percent in the same month of the preceding year, hitting the lowest level since a 2001 domestic financial crisis, the government's Medium-Term Economic Program (OVP) estimates the year-end unemployment in Turkey for 2011 at 12 percent. The number of unemployed decreased by 536,000 in September over the same period of the previous year and reached 2.4 million. Data from the Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat) revealed yesterday that more than 1.78 million people joined the pool of the employed in Turkey in the past 12 months to reach 24.75 million.