One of the conditions for being eligible “dole” is “120 days’ premium prior to unemployment must be paid uninterruptedly”.

According to news in media this obligation will be removed, and unemployed persons can apply for unemployment benefit (dole) even if they didn’t work uninterruptedly 120 days prior to unemployment.  

WHAT IS UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFIT?

Unemployment benefit, also called "Jobseekers Allowance" or "Dole," is an allowance granted to insured employees who lost their jobs against their will. In Turkey, it is simply referred as “unemployment salary” and paid to eligible workers in the scope of mandatory unemployment insurance in line with the Law on Unemployment Insurance No. 4447.

FOREIGN EMPLOYEES CAN REQUIRE DOLE

Legally employed foreigners are also subject to unemployment insurance premium in case they are working against wage under an employment contract, and are entitled to unemployment salary.

CONDITIONS OF BENEFITING

First of all, reason of leaving employment is very important. Employment contract should be terminated out of employee’s fault. Employees must lost their job against their own wish (not resigned without unjust cause) and without any fault on behalf of them.

Also the following conditions must be satisfied.

• 120 days’ premium prior to unemployment must be paid uninterruptedly Non-paid days coincides the situations such as sickness, unpaid leave, disciplinary penalty, economic crises, natural disasters etc. are not considered as interruption.
• 600 days of contributions must be paid in the preceding 3 years of employment.
• Worker should apply within 30 days as of termination of employment contract to the nearest İŞKUR (Turkish Employment Agency) unit personally or online.

CALCULATION OF UNEMPLOYMENT SALARY?

Unemployment salary is 40% of an employee’s daily average gross wage calculated on the basis of last 4 months’ salary prior to unemployment.

Amount of unemployment salary cannot be over 80% of monthly gross minimum wage

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITING PERIODS?

Benefiting periods depend on the worker’s number of contributions; and are as follows.

Employees who paid 600 days unemployment premium within 3 years prior to unemployment will benefit for 180 days (6 months),

Employees who paid 900 days unemployment premium within 3 years prior to unemployment will benefit for 240 days (8 months),

Employees who paid 1080 or more days unemployment premium within 3 years prior to unemployment will benefit for 300 days (10 months).

Collective vacation or annual shutdown, though not common in Turkey, is applied usually by manufacturing companies during certain seasons preferably in summer.

Employer may chose a total or partial shutdown, meaning some employees are sent to vacation while some others carrying on working for reasons of security, repair of and maintenance of machinery and equipment and so on.

REGULATION

Principals of Collective vacation are arranged in the “Regulation on Paid Annual Leave,” article 10-11.

• Employer may schedule collective vacation for all or some of employees between starting of April and end of October every year. The schedule that contains the employees taking vacation, and the start and end dates should be announced beforehand.
• In collective vacation or shutdown periods even the employees, who aren’t entitled for paid annual leave, may take their vacation.

EMPLOYEES OUT OF SCOPE

Some of the employees continue to work in the establishment for the following purposes;

• Security
• Cleaning
• Repair or maintenance of machinery and equipment.
• These employees may take their vacations whenever they chose out of collective vacation period. ANNUAL VACATATION ENTITLEMET

All employees who have worked for at least one year including the trail period are entitled to annual vacation. Vacation periods are as follows:

Length of Service                     Minimum Vacation Period

1 to 5 years (included)              14 working days

5 to 15 years                            20 working days

15 years (included) or longer    26 working days

• Paid annual leave may not be less than 20 days for employees under the age of 18 or over the age of 50.
• Employees are also allowed to take up to 4 (four) days' leave without pay, on the condition that the employee provides documentary evidence that s/he is spending his/her annual leave at a place other than where the work place is located.
• Employees engaged in seasonal or other occupations which, owing to their nature, last less than one year are not entitled to paid annual leave.
• Periods during which the employee has been employed in one or more workplaces of the same employer shall be considered jointly.
• An employee neither can waive his right of vacation nor can s/he engage in gainful employment during this period. Otherwise they may be asked by their employer to reimburse the annual leave remuneration paid in advance.

Cash compensation or cash indemnity is a kind of additional payment made to employees dealing with or responsible for cash flow in pay-desk, cashier's office and so on. This payment is intended to compensate the cash deficit that may occur during such employees' transactions.

Paying cash compensation is not obligatory for the employers; however it is very common in practice, as a kind of insurance for above said employees.

DEDUCTION OF CASH DEFICIT FROM EMPLOYEE'S SALARY

It Is a controversial issue whether cash deposits can be deducted from employee's salary or not. In the light of Labor Law and ruling of Supreme Court's rulings this kind of deduction doesn't' seem possible.

Article 62 of Labor Law 4857 reads as follows "no deductions of any kind may be made from an employee’s wages on the grounds that the daily or weekly working hours applicable to any type of work have been reduced by law, or by reason of the fulfillment by the employer of any legal obligation or because of any mandatory obligation imposed on the employer by the provisions of this Act.

NOT SUBJECTED TO SSI PREMIUM

As per article 80 of Social Security and General Health Insurance Law No 5510, cash compensation is not subjected to SSI premium contribution.

SUBJECT TO INCOME TAX

Cash compensation is considered as wage and subject to income tax.

As per article 61 of Income Tax Law No. 193; “Wage is a benefit provided by cash in kind and cash, represented by cash, in return of services performed by employees registered and subject to an employer.

It does not change the true nature of wage by paying it under the names of indemnity, allowance, cash compensation (Financial Liability Indemnity), allocation, increment, advance, remuneration, attendance fee, premium, bonus, in return of an expense or determined by a particular percent of revenue provided not to have the attribute of a partnership.

SHOULD BE INCLUDED IN THE CALCULATION OF SEVERANCE

As a rule qualified employee shall be paid a severance pay equal to last 30 days’ gross wages for each full year of employment.

In calculation of the last 30 days’ wage, the wage paid and the some contractual and statutory benefits in kind provided by employer shall be taken into account. Also periodical (annually, quarterly etc.) payments such as bonuses, cash compensation etc. will be added in monthly basis.

Employees who benefit from paid military service exemption will be given unpaid leave.

Bag Law that contains provisions for paid military service passed through the Parliament on 25 July 2018. Turkish citizens who were born on or before 1 January 1994 are given the chance of completing their military service in 21 days by paying 15.000,00 TRY.

UNPAID LEAVE FOR EMPLOYEES

In Turkish Labor Law unpaid leave, apart from under some specific conditions, can only be taken by the consent of employer. Now the new Law makes it obligatory for the employers to grant this shortened military service period as an unpaid leave.

During the unpaid leave, no wage and SSI premium is paid for the non-worked day.

SEVERANCE PAY

In normal conditions, according to article 14 of the Former Labor Law No. 1475 (still in effect),  an employee who joins to army due to compulsory military service may end his employment contract and require severance pay.

However, the above article will not be applied for shortened military service, and employee cannot require severance payment.

Set-off process from the due debts of employer, regarding the retrospective benefiting from the incentives, will start as of July 2018 without waiting until 1^st of 2019.

As we informed you before, the Bag Law No. 7103, issued in Official Gazette No. 30373, dated 27 March 2018, gives the opportunity to benefit from missed incentives retrospectively. We also informed you that calculated amount will be refunded within 3 years starting from 1^st January 2019 (for the applications completed until 1^st June 2018). Legal interest will be calculated for the refund amount as of above dates.

Now as per the new announcement from SSI, refunding process (by setting off from their current term SSI premium debts) will be started as of July 2017 term for the employers who completed their application until 1^st June 2018), and prepared the additional-cancellation declaration.

In Turkey press members have different rights in comparison with the other employees, regarding annual vacation, paid leaves and maternity leave.

Press Labor Law (Law on Sector Regulations between Press Employees and Employers) No. 5953, provides longer leave periods for press members.

ANNUAL VACATION

Annual vacation periods vary depending on where press members works.

• In daily periodicals;

ü  For employees whose length of service at least one year: 4 weeks, this one year service may be gained in different periodicals.

ü  For employees whose length of service is over ten years: 6 weeks.

• In weekly and monthly periodical; 2 weeks for every 6 months of service regardless of the length of service in the profession.

LEAVE OF ABSENCE WITH PAY

• Paternity Leave: 5 days in case of employee’s spouse giving birth,
• Bereavement Leave: 3 days, in the event of employee’s mother, father, spouse, brother or sister, and child's death.
• 2 days in case death of siblings and grandparents.
• 2 days in case marriage of a son or daughter.

MATERNITY LEAVE

Maternity leave of a press member is 5 moths, starting from 7^th month of pregnancy. She can get back to work at the starting of the 3. month after childbirth. In case the baby born is death 1 month leave after childbirth.

After birth rights provided in Labor Law 4857 such as half time and part time work and breastfeeding leave is not valid for press members.

DESCRIPTION OF PRESS MEMBER

Persons employed in periodical newspapers and magazines, news and photograph agencies, news departments of radio and television companies, under following titles are considered as press members;

• Writer, news reporter, painter, cartoonist, newspaper photographer, cameraman, translator, editor,
• News director, speaker, commentator,
• Person engaged in literary and artistic works in the press and media.