Layoff

Turkey's Social Security Institution (SGK) has made changes in a controversial article in the labor law, widely known as Code-29, after complaints that some firms were using it to dodge a government decision that bans layoffs.

Within the scope of a new economic reform package, micro and small-sized businesses that increase the number of employees on their payrolls will be granted loans between 100,000 and 500,000 Turkish Liras ($13,200 and $66,100).

Nearly 90 percent of large and medium-sized enterprises affected by the Covid-19 crisis have fully or partially resumed operations in the first week after the lifting of the state of emergency.

This is shown by the data from the CITUB monitoring of over 100 companies in the whole country, announced the national secretary of the union Todor Kapitanov.

OTE telecom will be implementing two new voluntary redundancy programs at the end of the month.
The programs concern more than 400 employees across the various departments and subsidiaries of the group and will cost a total of 55 million euros, or about €130,000 per departing employee on average.

Hundreds of thousands of workers in Balkan countries have lost their jobs due to economic hardship caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, official statistical data show. And many fear the real numbers of job losses could be considerably higher, as not all countries in the region have compiled comprehensive records.

Spain's unemployment rate rose to 14.4% in the first quarter of 2020, the National Statistical Institute INE reported today, Reuters reported.

In the previous quarter, unemployment was 13.8 percent - the lowest since the third quarter of 2008, but still the highest for the euro area countries after Greece.

Some 232,000 Turkish businesses affected by the coronavirus economic fallout have made applications to the government for short-time working payments to their 2.7 million employees between March 30 and April 16, according to Family, Labor and Social Services Minister Zehra Zümrüt Selçuk.

The coronavirus pandemic in only two months has already had a devastating effect on Greek labour as the stupefying data to date confirm and this is just the beginning.

In a country with a population of only 11 million the state-ordered lockdown closed 206,000 businesses which employ a total of over one million people.

Boeing, a US aircraft giant, is considering a plan to cut about 10% of its employees, as the company is experiencing serious difficulties because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Wall Street Journal reports.

According to a financial statement, the aircraft manufacturer's plan includes early retirement, but also forced redundancies mainly in its commercial area.

The main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) leader has said that the government's financial aid to workers who had been laid off or put on unpaid leave is "important" but will not be enough for the citizens' living expenditures.