Turkish Workers: Many Hours, Little Leave
231,000 people could be employed if working hours in Turkey would be reduced by one hour. This is the most striking finding of the "Report on Working Hours" worked out by the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions Research Institute (DİSK-AR). The report revealed that in comparison with other European countries, Turkey is the country with the longest working hours on one hand and the most restricted right to paid leave on the other hand.
According to the EU Working Hours Directive and the Revised European Social Charter, workers in member states of the European Union (EU) have the right to a minimum of four weeks of paid leave per year. The legal number of working hours amounts to a maximum of 40 hours per week.
The average of working hours in the EU stands at 38.6 hours per week. While people in France are working 35 hours, their colleagues in Turkey work 45 hours per week on average.
Never-ending overtime
Including extra hours, the average number of working hours rockets high at 53.7 per week. A Turkish worker has 8.7 extra hours per week compared with 3.2 as the European average.
These figures secure Turkey one of the top ranks on the international list of long working hours.
According to the evaluation of 48 countries in total, Turkey is on 14th position with 45 official working hours per week. Turkey shares this rank with Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka and Tanzania. Only ten countries exceed Turkey's number of working hours, for instance Ethiopia, Guatemala or Pakistan.
33 countries, among them Armenia, Albania, Indonesia, Korea or Madagascar, are in a better situation with mostly 40 working hours or less per week.
Little holiday, no sick leave
DISK-AR researched 99 countries all over the world and came to the result that with 14 days of paid leave Turkey is among the 35 countries with the most restricted right to paid leave.
4.6 days of sick leave in Turkey make the rear in a European comparison. Workers in Bulgaria were sick for 22 days on average, Polish workers were absent for 9.7 days because of health reasons and the British for 5.5.
Reduction of working hours creates employment
The total number of workers in Turkey amounts to 9.662 million. A reduction of working hours to 41.8 according to the European average (including extra hours) would create 2.750 million full-time jobs. A decrease to 45 hours per week would result in employment for 1.867 workers. If the working hours would just be reduced by one hour per week, this meant 231,000 additional jobs.
According to data compiled by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK), unemployment in Turkey ranged at 3.44 million as of February 2011.
Extra hours cause work accidents
The figures on paid leave, sick leave, weekly working hours and extra hours indicated that workers in Turkey are being made work at a rate that challenges the human capacity. As a result, Turkey is one of the leading countries in international comparison when it comes to the number of occupational accidents. (HK/ŞA/VK)