Turkey’s unemployment rate fell to a record low of 7.7% in December, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) – the country’s top statistical authority – reported in the last few hours. This represents the lowest level since records began in January 2005.
Unemployment was also down from 8.5% in November, according to the report published by the statistics agency. The number of unemployed people aged 15 and over fell by 286,000 to 2.73 million in December, the latest reference month. Unemployment reached 6.3% among men and 10.5% among women in that month.
The level of employment also fell, with 42,000 fewer people in work last month, reducing the total number of employed persons to 32,685,000 in December 2025 compared with the previous month (November). The overall employment rate thus fell to 49.1%, with 66.8% among men and 31.7% among women.
The labour force also fell by 328,000 to 35.42 million, while the labour participation rate stood at 53.2%, having declined by 0.5 percentage points. The number of persons in the labour force thus stood at 35.421 million in December 2025, after a fall of 328,000 from the previous month. The labour participation rate was 71.3% among men and 35.5% among women.
Youth unemployment, which covers the population aged 15 to 24, fell by 1.1 percentage points from November to 14.1% in December, with 12% among men and 18.2% among women. In 2025 as a whole, the unemployment rate in Turkey averaged around 8.3%.
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Edited and reviewed by:
Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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