Minimum wage talks for millions of workers to start next month

ANKARA

Labor and Social Security Minister Vedat Işıkhan has voiced hope that a consensus between the sides could be reached on the minimum wage that will take effect in 2025.

The Minimum Wage Commission, which brings together representatives of employers, workers and the government, will commence talks in December.

“We hope a figure will emerge [out of the talks] which all sides agree on,” Işıkhan said, speaking at parliament’s budget and planning commission during the discussions on his ministry’s budget for 2025.

Işıkhan recalled that the minimum wage was hiked by 254 percent in real terms from 184 liras in 2002 to 17,002 liras this year (around $495).

"We aim for a wage level that our stakeholders can agree on... without disrupting the overall stability of our economy,” the minister added.

Addressing the minister at the session, Veli Ağbaga, a lawmaker from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) said that 57 percent of employees receive the minimum wage.

"It is not the minimum wage, it has become the ‘regular wage,’” Ağbaba said.

CHP says the minimum wage should be at least 30,000 liras.

The Minimum Wage Commission announces the new wage rate, which takes effect in January, toward the end of December.

In the face of rampant inflation, the minimum wage was raised twice in 2022 and 2023.

The new minimum wage is unlikely to satisfy neither employers nor workers, Erdal Bahçıvan, president of the Istanbul Chamber of Industry (İSO) said earlier this week.

Most employers expect a 25 percent increase in the minimum wage. If this scenario materializes the new minimum wage for millions of workers will rise to around 21,250 liras.