Minimum wage

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on May 9 announced a 45 percent increase in wages of public workers, ahead of the key May 14 elections.

"We are increasing wages by 45 percent, including the welfare share. Thus, we are raising the lowest public worker wage to TL 15,000," Erdoğan said at the 2023 Public Collective Labor Agreement Signing Ceremony.

The government will reconsider the minimum wage level in July, Labor and Social Security Minister Vedat Bilgin has said.

He noted that inflation has started to decline but prices continue to increase.

The shortages of workers, particularly skilled ones, defining the current economic climate have improved their bargaining position vis-a-vis employers. 

According to Randstad's HR trends survey of business executives for 2023, 66% believe job seekers have unrealistic salary expectations. Indeed, this figure has increased by 17 percentage points compared to 2022.

The measures introduced by the government to support incomes were significant, however, they could make up for the high cost incurred by employers due to social security contributions.

The new minimum wage of €780 a month has come into force as of April 1, after an increase of 9.4% on the previous level.

Accordingly, the minimum daily wage has also gone up, to €34.84, an increase of €5.80 on its February 2019 rate.

The National Assembly has passed a law designed to reduce the impact of the annual increase in the minimum wage on households' creditworthiness after the latest increase rendered much of the population ineligible for a mortgage.

With the new increase in the minimum wage to 780 euros gross and the drop in unemployment, a view across private sector payrolls in 2023 would show that about half of the country's workers will be paid gross earnings of €700-1,000 - i.e. up to €820 euros net.

Thousands of protesters filled downtown Lisbon on March 18 to demand higher wages and pensions, as well as government intervention to cap soaring food prices they say are strangling already tight budgets.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced on Friday that the government will raise the minimum wage next month, for a third time in little more than a year. 

More specifically, Mitsotakis' conservative administration, whose four-year tenure ends in July, intends to raise the minimum wage by 9.4% to 780 euros per month, beginning April 1.

The increase in the monthly minimum wage by 9.4% as of April 1 "is a far cry from the demands of the poorest of workers and does not allow them to cover basic living needs," the country's biggest private-sector trade union federation has said.