SGK on hunt for firms reporting low wages

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

Turkey’s Social Security Institution (SGK) is cracking down on firms that report low employee wages in order to pay less in social security premiums. Hürriyet photo

Turkey’s Social Security Institution (SGK) is going after companies that report that their employees are earning lower wages than they actually do, or the minimum wage, in order to pay lower social security premiums.

The SGK is formulating a new initiative, which when completed by 2012, will be in line with international labor codes, according to daily Milliyet. Once the platform is ready the SGK will be able to ascertain exactly how much the average employee in a given occupation earns. At present, the SGK is only able to come up with a ball-park figure for each sector’s average wages. The SGK’s 2010 data shows that 43 percent of the 11 million registered employees with insurance, or 4.7 million employees, were reported by their employers as earning the minimum wage.