ANKARA

Turkish authorities are accelerating efforts to create new regulations to facilitate flexible working hours, including fixed-term employment contracts.

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Measures to be taken in this direction were discussed at the meeting of the Investment Climate Improvement Coordination Board (YOİKK) last week.

The first step is to introduce regulations that make it easier for companies to hire employees on a temporary basis with fixed-term employment contracts. Currently, fixed-term employment is possible under labor law, but with certain restrictions.

Under the provisions of the existing law, companies can only hire workers on one- or two-year contracts to carry out certain projects. The new regulation abolishes this criterion in order to facilitate temporary employment.

In the presentations made during the YOİKK meeting, the authorities stressed that the aim of these flexible working arrangements is to promote youth employment, pointing out that there are 800,000 unemployed people between the ages of 15 and 24.

The statement issued after the YOİKK meeting said that progress had been made in identifying the necessary changes to the current legislation to pave the way for teleworking and temporary work.

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The unemployment rate rose from 8.5 percent in May to 9.2 percent in June. The number of unemployed rose by 234,000 to 3.3 million within one month.

Youth unemployment (youth unemployment between 15 and 24 years of age) rose by 1.7 percentage points to 17.6 percent in June. The rate for men was 14.8 percent and for women 23.2 percent.