Employers paid 22.6 billion, workers 11.4 billion from unemployment fund

* Photo: Evrensel

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The Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions of Turkey Research Center (DİSK-AR) has released an information report regarding the Unemployment Insurance Fund Bulletin issued by the Employment Agency of Turkey (İŞKUR) for the April 2021 period.

The DİSK-AR has found that while workers were paid 11.4 billion TRY (~1.37 billion USD) in cash from the Unemployment Fund from April 2020 to April 2021, employers were paid 22.6 billion TRY as incentives, support payments and on-the-job training support. The Research Center has also noted that 33.1 billion TRY was paid as short time work allowance.

Underlining that putting employees on unpaid leave has become a common practice amid the layoff ban that has been in effect in Turkey since April 17, 2020 in the pandemic period, the DİSK-AR has said: 

"Millions of workers were condemned to 39 TRY a day in 2020 and to 47 TRY a day as of January 2021 as money wage support. If the resources transferred to employers had been paid to workers, money wage support could be three times higher than it is today."

According to the DİSK-AR report, since the pandemic officially came to Turkey in March 2020, workers have been paid nearly 50 billion TRY in total, except for the General Health Insurance premiums and Stamp Duty; while 11.4 billion TRY was paid as money wage support, 33.1 billion was paid as short time work allowance and 5.2 billion as unemployment fund. The DİSK-AR has underlined that 19.6 billion TRY was paid to employers as direct incentives and support in the same period.

Taken together with the on-the-job training support, the payment made to employers from April 2020 to 2021 hit 22.6 billion TRY.

The Research Center has emphasized that the payments made to the employers account for 26 percent of the İŞKUR's total expenditures.

It has been further noted that the fund-asset of the Unemployment Insurance Fund has been significantly diminished during the pandemic and the misuse of the Fund has taken on different dimensions.

"The fund-asset of the Unemployment Insurance Fund was 132 billion TRY before the pandemic; it has dropped to 89 billion TRY as of April 2021.

"If the Unemployment Fund had been used in a manner suiting its purposes, the fund-asset in April 2021 would be 111 billion 883 million 109 thousand TRY, not 89 billion 316 million 482 thousand TRY. In that case, workers could have received more support in the COVID-19 period." (HA/SD)