Turkey's unemployment rate stood at 10.2 percent in January 2012 and the number of job seekers was 2.66 million, the country's statistical authority said Monday.

According to data released by the Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat), the unemployment rate in January 2012 declined by 1.7 percent compared with the same period of the previous year.

TurkStat said on its website that the urban unemployment rate in January decreased by 1.8 percent year on year to 12 percent, while the rural unemployment rate saw a 1.6 percent year-on-year decline and stood at 6.5 percent.

Among Turkey's working-age population, which climbed by 1.23 million in January year-on-year, there were 2.66 million people out of work while the number of employed people reached 23.48 million.

Turkey's unemployment rate dropped 2.1 percentage points year- on-year to 9.8 percent for the whole year of 2011, the statistical authority announced in March.

Unemployment remains a major challenge for the Turkish government despite fast economic growth. In January, Turkish university students and youths protested in Istanbul, Ankara and Eskisehir against high unemployment in the country.

Turkey's economy grew 8.5 percent year-on-year to 115 billion Turkish Liras (about 65 billion U.S. dollars) in 2011, TurkStat said earlier.