Turkey increases minimum wage by 30 percent, 17 percentage points below inflation rate

Duvar English

Turkey’s Labour and Social Security Minister Vedat Işıkhan announced that the minimum wage as of Jan. 1, 2025, will be set at 22,104 Turkish liras ($628) net, following a meeting of the commission on minimum wage.

The rate of increase to the old minimum wage of 17,002 lira ($483) was 30 percent. 

In a press conference held on Dec. 24, Işıkhan argued, “As the AKP government, we have placed social justice, labor and solidarity at the center of our development policies for 22 years. Our country is strengthening its economic stability day by day. However, I would like to point out that Turkey is in a serious disinflation process.” 

“Our most important goal is to protect and increase the purchasing power of all segments of society, especially our fixed-income citizens, and to make the prosperity we have achieved permanent,” he added.

However, the announced 30-percent hike remains 17 percentage points below November’s annual inflation rate which realized at 47.09 percent.

This move confirmed the previous rumours that the government was planning to increase the wage based on “expected inflation rate” rather the actual one in an attempt to bring down inflation, burdening the cost of economic crisis more on the low and middle class segments.

Confederation of Turkish Trade Unions (Türk-İş), who sit at the table with the government on behalf of the workers in the minimum wage negotiations for 2025, did not attend the meeting held on Dec. 24.

The confederation said the commission was called to meet on the evening of Dec. 24, thus they “decided not to attend the meeting organized without any information on the minimum wage proposal.”

Moreover, they said the announced figure was "unacceptable even if set for six months."

They previously demanded a 74 percent hike in the minimum wage with a figure of 29,583 liras ($840).

Reactions

The opposition severely criticized the announced wage.

Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Özgür Özel said the announced figure “is the last sign of (President) Tayyip Erdoğan's detachment from the realities.”

“Those who have been claiming victory in Syria for days have inflicted defeat on the laborers and imposed misery wages. While the inflation rate of minimum wage earners is 80% and even the (official) inflation rate is 47%, millions of minimum wage earners have been crushed by inflation,” he said.

“I congratulate the board of Türk-İş for not attending the mandatory meeting and I invite the working class to use its power coming from production,” he added.

The CHP’s Central Executive Board (MYK) will hold an extraordinary meeting on Dec. 25.

Opposition Peoples’ Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party co-chair Tuncer Bakırhan said, “In this order where rents are over 20,000 liras, the poverty threshold exceeds 70,000 liras, taxes are increased by 43.93 percent, this wage determined for millions of minimum wage earners is the clearest message of the government's insistence on poverty and hunger imposed on the people.”

Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu said, “The government has officially mocked 9 million minimum wage workers and their families. 22,104 liras is not even enough for 1 month's rent in Istanbul.” 

İmamoğlu suggested Erdoğan additionally increase the wage with a presidential decree tomorrow and “announce that this figure is for 6 months and a new regulation will be made after 6 months. Do not make the nation pay for your bad economic policies.”

Background

The state-run Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) reported annual inflation at 47.09 percent for November, whereas the independent inflation research group ENAG put the figure at 86.76 percent.

The Turkish government increased the minimum wage twice in 2022 and 2023 in July amid the soaring inflation and cost of living crisis as well as as an investment for the 2023 elections. The government refrained from doing so in 2024.

Despite the loss of the ruling AKP in the 2024 local elections for the first time in its 23-year history, Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan reiterated the continuation of tight monetary policy amid high inflation rates which is mostly burdened by the low and middle classes.