FLEXIBLE WORKING HOURS

FATMA ZEHRA AKSOY

CEREN NAL
GZEM GRGN

CURRENT ISSUES IN TURKISH GROWTH

One of the current problems of Turkish economy is situation of labor market,
which is important as labor market indicates the outlook of a countrys economy.
Labor force participation in Turkey is low. In Turkey the labor force participation rate
in 2013 is 49% in high GDP countries such as in Germany it is 60%. The key factor is
that in these kind of countries productivity of working people are high.
Flexible working time is a way to encourage student, women and disabled
people. It cause steadily increase in labor force. Flexible working times are started to
use firstly in Germany. As a successful example, Germany where part time jobs are
supported by government, companies and individuals. Still, flexible hours are being
discussed for developed countries, as labor demand is available. In Turkey, this
system started after 1990s. In 2005 with the no.4857 labor law is enacted about
flexible working hours. One of the reasons for low labor force participation is despite
of high labor supply in Turkey towards flexible working hours, labor demand is low
and there is no systematic policy for that. Labor demand for flexible hours concerns
mainly housewives, students and disabled people. For 2014, population not in labor
force is 27 337 and total number of people who could be in labor force participation is
19 644 after introducing flexible working hours policy.

FLEXIBLE WORKING HOURS

Flexible work hours, in medium term and long term, decrease employees
costs, increases the probability of catching demand and productivity. However in
Turkey, this system is not common and this paper will try to recommend possible
policies to existing problems.
1. Law and Regulations1
There are two different types of flexible working introduced in Turkey by law.
In first case, according to employees defined schedule, in order to prevent working
more or less as hours, the average of working hour per week should not pass 45 hours.
The other case is employee works if required according to his/her undertake job
which could be 20 hours or less dependently on both employee and employer.
This regulation is not sufficient enough to integrate flexible working hours
into the system. From the employers point of view, and firms do not want to deal
with unqualified workers and they have a hard time reaching to relevant labor
demand. From employees side, even flexible working is desirable overtime workers
wages decrease is not desirable as it happened in Germany, applying flexible working
times in a factory caused overtime workers to decrease by 70%. However, people
searching for part time jobs in Turkey is approximately 84.000 (the distribution
among gender and reason may be seen from the Figure 1). Policy recommendation
regarding these issues is the enriching regulations regarding flexible working hours
and making labor market competent with flexible work hours. Since 84.000 are the
people who has been under track, forming an electronic data base where labor demand
and labor supply could be met can be an effective way to tackle it. There are 25 canals
to apply for jobs in Turkey according to Turkstat and the systematic ones are Turkish
Employment Office (KUR) for government and some special agencies mostly via
1 http://calismatoplum.org/sayi28/koc.pdf

internet. While Employment Office does not have system for part time jobs, part time
jobs on special networks are not under control. Turkey flexible worker market needs a
systematic and dynamic network which can be structured by agencies and the state
with fair regulations. The quality of workers on the network may be subject to
standardized tests and CV s, and unqualified labor may be offered to be trained. This
training process can be bot information based and social process as it can inspire from
National Agency(Ulusal Ajans) of Turkey. Currently NA is providing trainings and
projects of all sorts for almost all ages under Erasmus+ regulation. The funding is due
to budget of NA and Erasmus and some trainings and projects are funded by sponsors.
At first, the designed network for part time jobs can be related with NA and by time it
can form its own programme with the experienced contenders of NA.The benefits of
this network would be increased flow of knowledge and jobs with relatively higher
education than before. Also, this training programme may help heat up NGOs of
Turkey as some of them involve in such projects and even more flexible jobs can be
created by former part time job seekers by using their trainings. The disadvantage of
system migt be time issue as such regulations may take time to appear in law.

Resim 1:Figure 1
4

2.Social Security

Resim 2:Figure 2
Why law and regulation is so important is that they directly link financial
stament of employye and employer and in given circumstances in Turkey, social
security and insurance is making flexible working relatively costly to workers.
Flexible worker , with lower wage, pays as much as full time worker pays in terms of
taxes and insurance payments. Figure 2 shows 2015 second six month minimum wage
for employee and each employee's cost on employer. Flexible workers have even
more cost on employers and employees themselves encounters insurance premium
debts as they have been charged for every day that the are not working 2. Therefore,
having a part time job with insurance is not desirable in Turkey, in the end, not much
firms offer that. In Germany, 54% of German men and 49% of German women uses
flexible working time and only 11% of flexible workers have social security and 45%
of firms apply flexible working time system. Thus, this appears to be a possible issue
and a possible policy on this would be SSI to calculate flexible workers incomes and
working hours and operate on that, and again government needs to reconsider tax on
flexible workers and their employers. The target number here can be shadow labor
around 35% of Turkey which would come as an advantage. However the disadvantage
2 http://www.sgk.gen.tr/gss/part-time-calisanlara-gss-borcu.html
http://www.sgk.gen.tr/genel/ayda-30-gunden-az-calisanlar.html

is that Turkey's insurance system is lapped as women can benefit from a family
member's insurance and given unemployed salaries, people who seek part time jobs
does not want to get involved with SSI primes whereas they can enjoy more money.
3.Obstacles for Women
Flexible working hours for women in Turkey is significant as it is a good
chance to spend a time with family. According to a Regus survey in Turkey, women
who were in maternity leave cannot continue to work when they turned back. 82% of
firms do not accept to women come back to their work and those women becomes
unemployed even 64% of the firms are aware of the fact that importance of women in
the firms. Also the survey showed that 54% of moms who turned back to their work
has a request to work from away, 54% wants to work close to home and 44% wants to
make video-conference instead of business trip which makes flexible working hours
more desirable for women. Almost 12.000 women does not work because of being a
housewife and women constructs half of the shadow employment. Policy for this
problem would depend on first two problems. Women who does not want long
working hours would be able to work on their schedules and even work as a home
office employer. Home office may arrive here in terms of industry and internet based
jobs whereas qualified women may met labor demand by firms. The disadvantage
through this policy is that the informal sector is an arising sector in emerging
countries and it is preferred among women.

Resim 3:Figure 3
6

4.Obstacles for Students (+15, mostly University)

People who cannot work because of education is counted to be around five
thousand people however students in universities may quadruple the number. In
Germany, working is so common between students in various jobs that there is a labor
market which is set for students in reasonable salaries and conditions. In Turkey, a
student to work is not a familiar thing because of lack of incentives and market.
Students mostly consider to work under the internship compulsary university
demand , in any other case students do not work till they graduate which increases
their time to find jobs. However flexible working hours supported by career center of
universities and by firms , students can both benefit financial increase and experience
for future jobs if career centers functions as a bridge. In Germany, studienkolleg's help
students to reach these programs and offers in campus jobs with health insurance.. In
Turkey several universities have such programmes and determining right incentive is
important through this policy. If future employability chances increases in a visible
way and universities adopt compulsary internships, the policy would work better,
however it is due to first two recommendations again. The disadvantage is commonly
adopted unpaid internships in already restricted internship market,the firms need
incentive to work students by paying them. Therefore, the policy that can increase
student work may prompted by NA and Youth in Exchange programmes funded by
Erasmus.

5. Obstacles for Disabled People

TUIK had implemented a statistics to see the condition among handicapped people.
According to TUIK (2015), there are about 4000 recorded disabled people who not seeking a
job, but available to start. We claim that if we increase the number of disabled people on work
force, the growth will increase. According to recent TUIK, there are 114.696 quotas officially
for disabled people for both sector. But there are only 25.503 people are working as a disabled
quota. Most of the problem comes from employers not wanting to hire them.

(Disabled people who not seeking a job, but available to start)

In order to add handicapped people into work force and increase the labor productivity, we
can look into their situation in current Turkish system
a. Implementing Laws (Already on operation): When we look at the public and private sector,
each institution must reserve a quota for only disabled people. After 2004, all public
institutions should have at least 4% handicapped people in their staff. This rate for private
companies is determined as 3%. Public institutions hire disabled people by examination under
government's exam center (SYM). Even if public sector completes their quotas regularly,
private companies sometimes do not follow the law. According to law, if the employer does
not have and handicapped personnel in their company, they are punished with money (1.903,
00 TL per month for per handicapped quota). Most of private companies chooses paying the

fee and not to hire handicapped people. If government promote to employers in the
budget and giving money or taking less tax for per person, employers are willing to
hire disabled people. Another suggestion, by increasing the punishment fee, most of
the employers have to hire these people.
b. Training and Education: According to TUK, most of the disabled people could not
take education and training.

Increasing their education level, handicapped people's productivity will

increase. People do not have to have university degree. Government or foundations
can establish official and universal profession courses to increase disabled labor
productivity.
c. Creating Suitable Surrounding to Work
According to TUK, if disabled people can find comfortable surround, their
productivity will increase. Working conditions can be arranged easily according to
people's disability. For instance; if a personnel have walking problem, he can sit and
answer the
questions by phone
in front of
computer.
As the table shows
that, if disabled
people can find
avaible working
conditions for their
physical disability,
they will increase
the labor force.

With these regulations, disabled people have profession, educated or trained

well, therefore labor productivity will increase. Moreover, the happiness level of
Turkey increases, since disabled people can attend the social life easily. When labor
productivity and happiness increase, production will increase, income will increase
and finally, growth will increase.
The disadvantages would be that some of disabled people can work only on
their home. Home-office is not a popular and encouraged way for Turkish employers;
this can be a problem. Another issue for disabled people is cost of the education.
Since disabled people needs more care, training and courses may require some extra
costs for both government and companies. However, we should remember that for the
long run, employers will get higher outcome than their spending.
SOURCES
rem Ceylan. "alan Anne Esnek alma stiyor." N.p., n.d. Web.
"Trkiye'de Esnek alma Saati Neden Ilemiyor." N.p., n.d. Web.
"Esnek alma Bize Uyar M." N.p., n.d. Web.
Karaca Cansu. "Overtime and Overtime Wage in Turkish Labor Code (TLC)." N.p.,
n.d. Web.
The Journal Of Academic Social Science Studies, International Journal Of Social
Science, and Doi Number:http://dx.doi.org/10.9761/jasss1940. ALTERNATF BR
ALIMA EKL OLARAK ESNEK ALIMA UYGULAMALARI VE ETKLER *
(n.d.): n. pag. Web.
https://data.oecd.org/
Http://www.csgb.gov.tr/csgbPortal/cgm.portal?page=asgari. N.p., n.d. Web
Http://www.tuik.gov.tr/PreTablo.do?alt_id=1007. N.p., n.d. Web.
ESER, enay. "Part Time almann Trkiye'de Kadin Istihdamina Etkis." (1997): n.
pag. Web.

10