Figures released by the Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat) confirm that the number of so called unregistered employees (i.e. workers without social security contributions) have reached 9.8 million, in August 2013. According to these figures, 40 percent of the 25.96 million workers employed in Turkey are not registered with the social security system.
Turkey is the country where employees are working very long hours, with almost half of them regularly working over 50 hours a week.
The number of unregistered workers in August was 2.4 percent lower than that of the same month in 2012, but Turkey still remains among the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) members with the highest percentage of unregistered workers.
According to TurkStat 84.6 percent of workers employed in the agricultural sector are not in the social security system. A total of 22.2 percent in non-agricultural sectors are also unregistered.
More than half of female workers are not covered by the social security system, while this figure is 31.1 percent for male employees. There are 7.74 million female and 18.21 million male workers in Turkey. Agriculture is the sector with the highest share of the 4.13 million unregistered female workers, some 2.98 million women.
According to TurkStat of the total 1.16 million employers, 13.7 percent do not participate in the social security system.
When it comes to seasonal agricultural workers, 80 percent are not in the system. Seasonal workers travel with their families to different cities for agricultural employment, mostly during the summer. 70 percent of these workers also bring their children to work in the fields and one-fifth of these people have to receive food aid from the state.
An average of 1,000 people die every year in Turkey as a result of work-related accidents, most of which are avoidable with simple safety measures.
People who work in a family business are also often never covered by social security.
The official figures put the number in this group at 3.56 million. A total of 93.1 percent in this group of workers have never been registered with the social security system. TurkStat defines these as “voluntary family workers” and excludes them from the list of the unemployed.