Turkey’s unemployment rate jumped to 9.8% (2.81mn people) in August from 8.8% in the same month of last year and 9.3% in July 2013, data from the statistics institute (TUIK) showed on Friday.

Data suggest that the economic recovery is still not strong enough to provide jobs to new entrants. The economy created 593,000 jobs between August 2012 – August 2013, comparing unfavorably with the 601,000 employment creation between July 2012 – July 2013 and 742,000 between June 2012 – June 2013.

The seasonally adjusted jobless rate remained unchanged at 10.1% from July to August while increased compared to the adjusted unemployment rate of 9.1% recorded in August 2012.

The non-farm unemployment rate also increased to 12.3% in August from 11.8% in July and 11.3% in August 2012 while youth-unemployment rate rose from 18% in July and 17.2% a year ago to 18.7% in the month.

The labour force participation rate, which stood at 51.7% in July, slightly edged down to 51.6% in August. The participation rate was 50.7% in August 2012.

The prospects for labour market are not very bright. GPD data, released last month, showed that private sector investments contracted 2% y/y in Q2 that followed the 7.3% y/y decline in Q1. Private sector’s investments fell 4.6% y/y in H1.

Last month, the government unveiled the new medium-term programme (MTP), covering 2014-2016, and said that unemployment rate was expected to edge down to 9.4% next year from 9.5% in 2013 (2013 unemployment rate estimate in the previous MTP was 8.9%).

The IMF also released its World Economic Outlook - October 2013 report, last month where the Fund did not change its unemployment forecasts for Turkey. The IMF does not expect an improvement in job conditions. On the contrary, the report says that the unemployment rate will increase to 9.4% this year from last year’s 9.2%. The jobless rate is expected to be 9.5% in 2014.

Last week, the European Commission (EC) said in its autumn forecasts that it did not expect improvement in labour market. The unemployment rate will increase to 9.9% next year from 9.6% this year only to fell to 9.2% in 2015, according to the EC.