The number of unemployed people increased by 0.7 percentage points in July compared to the previous month, the Turkish Statistical Institute has said.
“The unemployment rate was realized as 9.8 percent ... 8.8 percent for male and 12 percent for female” Turkstat said in a report released on Wednesday.
The number of unemployed aged 15 and over rose to 2.867 million in July 2014, showing an increase of 213,000 in the number of jobless.
Although Turkey’s economy has been creating jobs at a significant pace, the number of people looking for work had grown faster than the economy can employ and weak growth performance has immediately shown itself through higher unemployment.
Challenged with weak recovery in Europe, Turkey's main export market, and geopolitical crisis in Iraq, Turkey’s GDP growth was negatively affected and slowed to 2.1 percent from 4.7 percent in the first quarter.
On September 11, credit rating agency Fitch warned Turkey of a challenging second half due to “fragile Eurozone recovery and heightened geopolitical risk since May”.