The commission is meeting! Minister Işıkhan's statement on the minimum wage
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The Turkish Grand National Assembly's Planning and Budget Commission has begun discussions on the Ministry of Labor and Social Security's 2026 budget. Chaired by AK Party Samsun Deputy Mehmet Muş , the commission also discussed the 2026 budget of the Social Security Institution (SGK), the Vocational Qualifications Agency affiliated with the ministry, the Turkish Employment Agency General Directorate (İŞKUR), and Court of Accounts reports.
"WE ARE DOING WHATEVER IS NECESSARY" Minister of Labor and Social Security Vedat Işıkhan made a presentation to the commission, providing information regarding the explosion that occurred at a perfume factory in Dilovası , Kocaeli. Işıkhan stated, "Immediately following the explosion, I went to Dilovası and conducted investigations. We have launched an investigation by assigning our chief inspectors and inspectors. The administrative process and the judicial process are continuing simultaneously. To ensure the integrity of the investigation, we have suspended a total of seven personnel, including our İŞKUR and SGK provincial directors. We will be following up on this process. We are doing whatever is necessary to ensure the investigation is conducted properly and those responsible are identified and held accountable."
"THE NUMBER OF INSURED INDIVIDUALS WORKING IN THE EARTHQUAKE ZONE INCREASED FROM 1 MILLION 889 THOUSAND TO 2 MILLION 4 THOUSAND" Minister Işıkhan reminded that they implemented many measures to protect employers and employees in the region immediately after the earthquake centered in Kahramanmaraş and said, "We have stood by our employees and citizens with programs such as short-time working allowance, cash wage support, TYP and unemployment benefits, with a total expenditure of nearly 40 billion in the region to date. As a result of all these efforts, the total number of insured employees in the 11 provinces most affected by the earthquake was 1 million 889 thousand as of December 2022 before the earthquake, while it decreased by half after the earthquake; according to the latest published data for August 2025, the number of insured people was 2 million 4 thousand."
Işıkhan noted that they continue to strengthen working life with an approach that increases production, employment, and exports, and reminded the public that the National Employment Strategy, covering the 2025-2028 period and designed to ensure Türkiye's sustainable economic growth, increase labor force participation and employment, and improve workforce qualifications, has entered into force. Işıkhan continued:
We are implementing our consultation mechanisms stipulated in the legislation to ensure the effective use of social dialogue. We convened the Tripartite Advisory Board on October 9, 2025, with the agenda of "Expanding Union Organization." To increase social dialogue in the public sector, we held the Public Personnel Advisory Board meeting on September 30, 2025, with representatives from confederations, authorized unions, and relevant public institutions and organizations. The 14th Labor Assembly will convene tomorrow with the agenda of "Digital Transformation in Working Life." We support all unions that play a significant role in the institutional, systematic, inclusive, and transparent functioning of social dialogue in working life, and we prioritize increasing unionization rates in this context.
Işıkhan, commenting on unionization rates, emphasized that the unionization rate among workers, which stood at 9.21 percent in 2013, had risen to 14.02 percent by 2025. He also noted that for public servants, this rate, which was 47.94 percent in 2002, had risen to 76.88 percent in 2025.
“WE HOPEFULLY THAT AN AMOUNT ON THE MINIMUM WAGE THAT EVERYONE AGREES ON WILL BE AGREED ON” Işıkhan, reminding that the minimum wage was raised to a net 22,104 liras at the beginning of the year, said, “Thus, we have increased the minimum wage, which was 184 liras in 2002, by 223 percent in real terms. This year, in December, our commission will convene to determine the minimum wage to be implemented in 2026. We hope that an amount that everyone agrees on will be agreed upon. We have increased the Minimum Wage Support, which we launched in 2016, to 1,000 liras per month for 2025. In the first eight months of 2025, we provided approximately 41.6 billion liras of minimum wage support to 1.5 million workplaces.”
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