The unemployment rate in Türkiye in August dropped to single digits for the first time in four years and marked the lowest level in more than eight years, official data showed Monday.

The jobless rate fell 0.4 percentage points month-over-month to 9.6% in August, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) said.

The rate dropped to single digits for the first time since January 2018 and marked the lowest level since March 2014.

The number of unemployed people aged 15 and over dropped by 100,000 month-over-month to 3.3 million as of August, the statistical authority said. The unemployment rate was estimated at 8.2% for men and at 12.5% for women.

A seasonally adjusted measure of labor underutilization fell to 19.8%, the data showed.

The labor underutilization measure, which stood at 22.4% in July, has been on a falling trend since peaking at 29.6% in January 2021 due to the economic fallout from pandemic measures.

The unemployment rate for July was revised to 10.0% from an initial 10.1%, data from the statistical institute also showed.

The labor force participation rate in August rose 0.4 percentage points from a month earlier to 53.0%.

The employment rate rose 0.5 percentage points from July to 47.9%, or 31 million people as of August.

The youth unemployment rate in the 15-24 age group was 18% with a 0.8 percentage point decrease compared to the previous month. The rate was estimated at 15.2% for men and at 23.3% for women.

The number of people in the labor force realized as nearly 34.33 million, with a 266,000 increase compared to the previous month.