2024 Minimum Wage Support Procedures and Principles

With the amendment made on January 25, 2024, temporary Article 101 was added to the Social Insurance and General Health Insurance Law No. 5510 (In Turkish), and the application of minimum wage support was continued.

The mentioned article provides that employers who employ insured persons subject to long-term insurance branches under clause 4/1-a can benefit from minimum wage support, and general regulations regarding the conditions for benefiting from the support, and in which cases the support will not be provided have been introduced. In summary;

"Employers who employ insured persons subject to the provisions of long-term insurance branches under paragraph (a) of the first clause of Article 4;

1. For the total number of premium payment days for insured persons reported in the monthly premium and service documents or summary and premium service declarations given for the current month of 2024, not exceeding the total number of premium payment days for insured persons reported to have a daily earning based on premiums of 671 Turkish Lira and below in the monthly premium and service documents or summary and premium service declarations given for the same month of the year 2023,
2. The amount calculated by multiplying the total number of premium payment days reported for the insured persons from workplaces first included under this Law in 2024 by 23.33 Turkish Lira for the period of January to December 2024, will be offset against the insurance premiums that these employers are to pay to the Institution, and this amount will be covered by the Unemployment Insurance Fund. However, the daily earning based on premiums mentioned in clause (a) is considered as 1,341 Turkish Lira for workplaces belonging to private sector employers subject to collective labor agreements under the provisions of Law No. 6356.

Under this article, in the month/period benefiting from support, if reporting is done below the number of insured persons reported in at least one month/period of January to December 2023 through monthly premium and service documents or summary and premium service declarations under paragraph (a) of the first clause of Article 4, the provisions of this article shall not apply." are included.

With Circular No. 2024/3 published by the Social Security Institution on February 29, 2024, the procedures to be carried out by the SGK in accordance with temporary Article 101 of the Law No. 5510 containing provisions related to minimum wage support have been detailed.

In summary, the circular states that private sector workplace employers employing insured persons subject to the provisions of long-term insurance branches under paragraph (a) of the first clause of Article 4 of Law No. 5510 will benefit from this support. It outlines the scope of support, which type of insured persons are included in the support scope, the calculation of the number of days to benefit from the support, and the procedures and principles related to benefiting from the support.

No application requirement is foreseen to benefit from minimum wage support; the calculation of the number of premium payment days to benefit from the support is detailed in the circular, and it is regulated that the number of premium payment days for the relevant month/period of 2023 is taken as the basis, and the earnings based on premiums for the year 2023 must be below 671.00 TRY.

Therefore, to avoid missing out on minimum wage support, it is necessary for employers to form their employment policies for 2024 taking into account the number of insured days and the earnings based on premiums they reported in 2023, especially workplaces operating in the accommodation and entertainment business sectors, including the tourism sector where the number of employments periodically increases, should pay necessary attention to these principles and procedures.

You can access the relevant Circular here (In Turkish).

Should you have any queries or need further details, please contact your customer representative.