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Ombudsman Institution

Türkiye has taken measures to prevent unemployment and to protect
employment through the support it has provided to all enterprises, especially
those that have been most affected by the pandemic. Supporting employers
and continuing business operations means providing employment in addition
to the sustainability of production and added value in the economy, which is
the first and foremost step in preventing unemployment.

Besides, there have been certain measures to protect the employees financially
during this time such as prohibiting the termination of employment contracts,
short-time working allowance and extending the compensatory working time.
The short-time working allowance aims to protect employment, that is, to
prevent employees from losing their jobs and to compensate for some of the
loss of income during this period when the work stopped for compulsory
causes mainly due to COVID-19.

The purpose of all these measures is to maintain financial stability by
protecting employment. As a result of these regulations, 1 million 360 thousand
employees have been paid short-time working allowance.

In order to protect employment and prevent unemployment that may
occur during this time, it has been ruled that employment contracts cannot
be terminated by the employers for 3 months, except for violations of ethics
and goodwill rules with the Law No. 7244, which came into force on April 17,
2020. In addition, the terminations made during this time will be void and an
administrative fine can be imposed on the employer.

An amendment was made in Article 43 of the Law No. 7226 dated March
26, 2020 regarding the compensatory working period in case of stopping work
for compulsory causes, suspending work before or after the national holidays
and other holidays, working hours significantly shorter than the usual hours or
suspending work completely or allowing the employee to take time off upon
their request. Accordingly, the compensatory working period was extended to
four months, and the President has been granted the authority to extend this
period twice.

Within the scope of the measures taken to prevent the spread of coronavirus,
a regulation was made to pay wages in order to prevent people working in

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