The following amendments were made on April 28, 2011 to the Regulation Regarding the Implementation of the Law Regarding Work Permits for Foreigners (No. 25214) (published in the Official Gazette dated August 29, 2003).

o    Work permit applications are required to be made by a petition electronically to the authority determined in the Regulation Regarding Work Permits for Foreigners.
o    The Foreign Personnel Application Form and documents should be filled in line with the instructions in the attachment of the Regulation Regarding Work Permits for Foreigners.
o    For applications made abroad, an application shall be made by the foreigner to the Turkish diplomatic representatives of Turkey in the foreigner’s country of origin or permanent residence (Article 6). Turkish diplomatic representatives of Turkey and the Ministry shall lead the application process electronically.
o    Only foreigners holding a valid residence permit at least for a period of six months at the time of the application, or their employers, may make an application for a work permit directly to the Ministry in Turkey and moreover the required documents for the application process shall be provided to the Ministry within six days following the electronic application.
o    Work permit extension applications are to be made electronically by a petition to the Ministry, in accordance with the principles explained under the Article 5 (Article 8).
o    Foreigners, who apply for the work permit extension, may work in the same workplace and same occupation, for a maximum of 45 days as of the date the work permit expires. The employment relationship within this period shall be considered as a legal employment relationship and the obligations of the foreigner, relevant authorities and the employer shall continue. 

As per the recent changes the requirement to employ five Turkish employees per foreign employee shall be fulfilled by the employers wishing to employ foreigners. In other words, during the evaluation of the work permit application process, the Ministry will require the employer/company to evidence that five Turkish employees are registered on the payroll of the company. The Ministry published a new announcement regulating the possible exceptions to this on April 20, 2011.

Further to the evaluation criteria, determined in accordance with the Article 13 of the Regulation Regarding Work Permits for Foreigners (No. 25214) (published in the Official Gazette dated August 29, 2003) applicable as of August 2, 2010, the requirements the applicant companies and foreigners must meet are as follows:

1.    The employment of minimum five personnel, who are citizens of Turkey, in the applicant company, is mandatory. In the event that the applicant foreigner is a partner of the company, the minimum five personnel condition is required only for the last six months of a one-year work permit assigned by the Ministry. In the event of a work permit request for more than one foreigner in the same company, the requirement of minimum five personnel of Turkish citizenship shall be met for each subsequent foreign applicant, respectively.

2.    The paid-up capital of the company has to be minimum TRY100,000 or the gross sales of the company have to be minimum TRY800,000 or the previous year’s exports of the company has to be minimum USD250,000.

3.    The share of the applicant foreign partner has to be minimum 20%, provided that the share of capital held by the foreign partner is minimum TRY40,000.

4.    The monthly salary of the foreign applicant declared by the company has to be in accordance with the foreigner applicant’s competence and duties. Therefore, by taking the subsistence wage in force as of the application date into consideration, the salary to be paid to the foreigner should be minimum:

o    6.5 times the subsistence wage for senior staff, pilots, and engineers and architects who requested prior authorization,

o    4 times the subsistence wage for unit or branch managers and engineers and architects.

5.    The evaluation criteria foreigners must meet in order to obtain a work permit, stated in clauses 1 and 2 above, will not be applied in the event that there is a bilateral or multi-lateral agreement to which Turkey is a party and the foreigner is employed by state institutions and organisations for the purpose of the purchase of goods and services by contract or tender procedure.

6.    The evaluation criteria that foreigners must meet in order to obtain a work permit, stated in clauses 1 and 2 above, will not be applied upon the approval of General Directorate in the event that advanced technology is needed or there are no Turkish experts with the same qualifications.

7.    In the event that the company has a Featured Foreign Direct Investment clause, the criteria stated in clause 1 above for foreigner applicants who are not key personnel, shall be applied taking the number of Turkish personnel who are employed by the company nationwide into consideration.

The Regulation on Suspending Operations and Closing the Workplaces was amended on 28 October 2010. The amendments include the implementing and revoking of decisions regarding the stopping of operations, the closing of entities and procedures to follow in cases of emergency.

Legal Newsletter Turkey Q4/2010The Regulation on Duties, Authorities, Responsibilities and Educations of Occupational Safety Specialists (published in the Official Gazette dated 27 November 2010 and numbered 27768) regulates the qualifications, training and certification, duties, authorisation and responsibilities of occupational safety specialists. The scope of the Regulation includes workplaces and educational institutions that are deemed industrial and where a minimum of 50 employees is employed.

The Occupational Health and Safety Services Regulation (published in the Official Gazette dated 27 November 2010 and numbered 27768) (the “OHS Regulation”) sets forth the establishment of Occupational Health and Safety (“OHS”) units and principles and procedures of establishment, annulment of licenses, and also duties and authorisations of health and safety units to be established within the workplace by public or private entities. The OHS Regulation applies to workplaces as regulated by the Labour Law (Law No. 4857) where a minimum of 50 employees is employed. According to Article 5 of the OHS Regulation, employers shall establish an OHS unit. These units shall consist of at least one occupational doctor and other health personnel if necessary. Additionally, one occupational safety specialist shall be in an OHS unit in industrial workplaces, according to the OHS risk of such work.

Pursuant to Article 39 of the Labour Code (Law No. 4857), for the purpose of the regulation of the economic and social standards of employees, the minimum salary paid to employees employed under employment contracts and those do and do not fall within the scope of the Labour Code is to be determined by the Minimum Wage Determination Commissions of the Ministry of Labour and Social Security. For this year, the gross minimum wage to be paid from 1 January 2009 to 30 June 2009 is TL666.00, and from 1 July 2009 to 31 December 2009 TL693.00.

The Law on the Social Security and General Health Insurance (Law No. 5510) was amended on 25 June 2009. Accordingly, social security premium payments paid by the employers for employees with regards to their disability, old-age and death insurance shall be partially borne by the Treasury.