Turkey’s unemployment rate fell by half a percentage point to 10.7% in February, the country's statistical authority said on Monday.

The number of unemployed people aged 15 years old and over dropped by 178,000 to 3.58 million in February, compared to the previous month, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) said.

The unemployment rate was 9.3% for men and 13.4% for women, it added.

TurkStat also said the number of employed people increased by 90,000 people in February compared to the previous month, reaching 30.6 million. The employment rate remained stable at 46.6%. This rate was 64% for men and 29.6% for women.

The seasonally adjusted workforce decreased by 87,000 in the said month compared to the previous month, falling to 33.5 million. The labor force participation rate, meanwhile, decreased by 0.2 percentage points to 52.2%. The labor force participation rate was 70.6% for men and 34.2% for women.

The average weekly actual working time, adjusted for seasonal and calendar effects, of those employed during the reference period was 45.6 hours, with an increase of 0.3 hours on a monthly basis in February.

The rate of underemployment due to time, potential workforce and the unemployed, decreased by 0.9 points on a monthly basis and became 21.8%. While the combined rate of time-related underemployment and the unemployed was 14.7%, the combined rate of potential workforce and unemployed was estimated as 18.1%.