ANKARA (22 Feb 2023): After another major earthquake hit Southern Türkiye, the government launched a temporary “wage support scheme” across cities affected by the quakes.
According to reports, on Wednesday, the government decided against laying off people and offered financial support to workers and businesses in ten provinces severely impacted by the quakes.
The move is being seen as the government’s initiative to minimize economic disruption in Türkiye’s worst earthquakes in modern history, which have claimed the lives of approximately 47,000 people.
According to Türkiye’s official Gazette, employers whose places of work were “heavily or moderately damaged” by the quakes would benefit from this move which aims to support and/or partially cover the wages of workers whose hours had been cut.meanwhile, the authorities are focused on implementing a ban on laying off employees in the most affected regions, under a state of emergency.on the other hand, the Türkish Parliament has also imposed a state of emergency for three months starting 7 February, after President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan requested. Earlier, the government offered support in salary and imposed a layoff in 2020 to “mitigate” the economic blow from COVID-19.
Meanwhile, economists and the business community have said the earthquake will cost up to a hundred billion USD in rehabilitation to rebuild housing and infrastructure.
