Turkey's unemployment rate hit its highest level in almost seven years in the November-January period, reaching 12.7 percent, official data showed on Wednesday, with youth unemployment at nearly double that figure. The data comes a month before a referendum, supported by President Tayyip Erdogan, to reform the constitution and usher in sweeping presidential powers. Erdogan and the AKP he founded owe part of their electoral success to their stewardship of the economy.
Economic conditions have traditionally been a driver of voter sentiment in Turkey and Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci on Wednesday acknowledged that the jobless rate was a major difficulty for the government.
"Unemployment is one of our biggest problems," he said in comments broadcast live on television. "We will solve this issue through the private sector."
The average unemployment rate for the three months to January 2017 rose to 12.7 percent, the Turkish Statistical Institute said, up from 10.5 percent in the same period a year earlier and 12.1 percent in the previous three months.
Erdogan in February called for what he described as an "employment mobilisation", urging business owners to boost hiring in a bid to add 1.5 million new jobs ahead of the referendum.
He says the proposed constitutional changes will prevent a return to the fragile parliamentary coalitions of the past and is needed at a time when Turkey faces unprecedented security threats as well as economic troubles. Opponents fear it will spark a surge in authoritarianism.