Confidence weakened across Türkiye’s services, retail trade and construction sectors in August, according to data released by the Turkish Statistical Institute on August 25, 2026. The seasonally adjusted confidence index slipped 0.1% to 111.9 in services, fell 0.8% to 110.1 in retail trade and declined 0.4% to 83.1 in construction. All three headline indicators moved lower in the same month, pointing to a more cautious assessment of current business conditions.
Services and retail remain above the 100 threshold
Values above 100 indicate an optimistic outlook, while readings below 100 indicate pessimism. On that basis, services and retail trade remained in optimistic territory in August. Construction stayed below the threshold at 83.1. The direction of travel also matters: the limited monthly declines suggest that short-term sentiment became more cautious without amounting to a broad collapse in confidence.
Within services, the business situation over the past three months decreased by 1.2%, while expectations for demand over the next three months increased by 0.9%. The divergence shows that service companies reported weaker recent activity but retained a measured expectation of improvement ahead. The small 0.1% fall in the overall services index also indicates that different components largely offset one another.
Retail expectations improve despite weaker recent sales
In retail trade, business activity and sales over the previous three months decreased by 5.8%. Expectations for business activity and sales over the next three months, however, rose by 3.8%. Although the headline retail confidence index declined by 0.8%, its level of 110.1 shows that respondents did not lose their overall optimism about the near-term outlook.
The retail figures highlight a gap between the current pace of sales and companies’ plans for the months ahead. A confidence index does not directly measure sales volumes, revenue or profitability. It combines managers’ assessments of present conditions and future expectations. The results therefore provide a clearer economic signal when read alongside official data on consumption, prices and retail turnover.
Construction orders fall as employment expectations rise
In construction, the current level of registered orders decreased by 3.8%, while expectations for total employment over the next three months increased by 2.8%. The headline confidence index fell 0.4% to 83.1. Weaker orders point to pressure on current activity, while stronger employment expectations suggest that companies see the possibility of greater labour needs in the coming months.
Construction confidence remaining below 100 signals continuing pessimism in the sector’s overall assessment, but it does not mean that output or investment contracted by the same proportion. Financing conditions, input costs, new orders, building permits and public investment all influence actual performance. For that reason, confidence data are treated as an early indicator rather than a complete measure of economic activity.
Why the data matter
Sectoral confidence indices provide an early reading of how businesses view current activity and the near future. August’s results show that monthly momentum weakened across three major sectors even though services and retail stayed in optimistic territory. Improvements in expectations for demand, sales and employment also show that the deterioration was not uniform across all survey components.
In the coming months, the confidence readings will be assessed together with consumer confidence, manufacturing sentiment, industrial production, retail sales volumes and building permit data. Whether the August decline develops into a sustained trend will become clearer through the direction of the headline indices and the movement of order and demand components in subsequent releases.
