Turkey pays salaries of 3M employees amid coronavirus

ISTANBUL

Turkey has paid the salaries of 3 million employees to bail out firms amid the coronavirus lockdown, the country’s labor minister said Monday.

More than 268,000 firms applied for the short-term employment allowance, which the government announced earlier this month to cushion the fallout of the pandemic, Zehra Zumrut Selcuk tweeted.

“We support our employees and employers by mobilizing all our resources,” she said.

She went on to say that 40% of the applications came from the manufacturing sector, 15% from retailers and wholesalers, 12% from hotels and food companies, 6% from the educational sector, and 27% from miscellaneous firms.

Any firm forced out of business due to a Force Majeure, such as the pandemic, can approach the government.

As part of the allowance, the government will pay 60% of the staff salaries for a period of three months -- within the ranges of 1,752

Turkish liras ($255) to 4,381 liras ($640).

The government will also pay a daily allowance of 39.24 liras ($5.7) for a period of three months to workers forced to take unpaid leave.

Last week, the country barred employers from laying off workers during the COVID-19 pandemic for the three-month period.

The coronavirus death toll in Turkey reached 2,017 as of Sunday, with 86,306 cases to date.

After originating in China last December, COVID-19, the disease caused by coronavirus, has spread to at least 185 countries and regions across the world.

The pandemic has killed over 165,000 people, with total infections exceeding 2.4 million, according to figures compiled by the U.S.-based Johns Hopkins University.