Decreasing real wages cannot be acceptable, says Turkish boss

ANTALYA - Doğan News Agency

AA Photo

The world economy and financial markets have been growing for the last 50 years, but decreasing real wages  relative to GDP is unacceptable and unsustainable, said the board member of Turkey’s Koç Holding and the current B-20 Employment Task Group Coordinator Ali Koç.

“The only thing that has not been growing is the real wages of workers across the world. The share of real wages to GDP has been decreasing for many years. This trend is unacceptable and unsustainable,” Koç said at the B-20 group’s meeting Feb. 26.

The group must work within a system that is still suffering from the devastating effects of the global economic crisis, he added.

“The problems of millions of job seekers and people who are working under very bad conditions cannot wait to be resolved,” Koç said, adding that everyone must reflect on the social unrest that will result.

“We aim to develop an effective mechanism for the execution, deepening and monitoring of the employment policies of G-20 countries,” he said, stressing that one of the priorities of the B-20 group is to focus on action, rather than promises.

There were more than 201 million unemployed people in the world in 2014, 31 million more than the figures in the pre-crisis period, said Turkish Employers’ Union (TİSK) head Yağız Eyüpoğlu at the same meeting.

“This figure is predicted to increase up to 280 million by 2019. In particular, young people are suffering from unemployment,” Eyüpoğlu said.