Turkey's unemployment rate at 14 percent

The Turkish Statistics Institute said an additional 838,000 people became unemployed in 2009 for a total of 3.2 million jobless, the Zaman newspaper reported Wednesday.

The 2008 year-end unemployment rate was 11 percent, the report said.

"The economic powerhouse of İstanbul had the second-highest unemployment rate at 16.8 percent, second only to the least developed region of Turkey, southeast Anatolia with 17.4 percent," the agency reported. "Youth unemployment, an especially crucial issue for Turkey considering that half of the population is below the age of 28, also increased to 25.3 percent in 2009, up from 20.5 percent in 2008."

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