A SEASIDE VIEW: Wasting (people) capital
Güncelleme Tarihi:
by Chris Drum BERKAYA
Oluşturulma Tarihi: Haziran 02, 2009 00:00
BODRUM - Flicking on the Turkish television station late Sunday night and discovering the go-everywhere, self-promotion expert Paris Hilton fluttering her surreal eyelashes on a popular game show was a bit of a shock.
"What’s she doing there?" It seems she is picking a box or two to help raise money for a worthy cause. But, I wondered, was Paris being paid appearance money? How else does she maintain her lifestyle? Does that mean she is É (shock horror) working in Turkey as a foreigner?
Ah, but then celebrities and footballers have carte blanche in Turkey and seem to get permission to work without so much as a trade school certificate, let alone a university degree, shared between half of them. Then, there is the other side of the coin. Take the case of English friends who seized on being a distributing agent in Turkey for a product that seems to tick all the boxes Ğ low carbon footprint, saves energy, improves peoples’ houses after the builders have left, etc., after having used it themselves.
Having gone through the expense of setting up a Turkish company with all the laudable British good intentions of "doing the right thing," they find themselves now paying taxes, and the accountants’ fees, plus social security. Yes, they pay compulsory social security already, before they know the answer as to if the company director will get a work permit. Having waded through finding school certificates back to the age of 11, (they can read), they now hear stories of university degrees only being accepted. They also have been quietly told that officialdom probably will only accept firms officially employing 15 or more Turkish employees, a massive outlay that fails to fit any start-up, entrepreneurial model of investment.
But then as one of the foreign company owners observed on an Internet forum, there is no discernible support for small businesses, let alone start-ups in Turkey, so there is no need to take it personally. In an economic climate where the latest figures of 16 percent registered unemployment have been released before the next month when the latest young school and university graduates hit the employment market, there hasn’t been any effort to stimulate employment, particularly of the young.
If 20 foreign small company owners were allowed their own work permit conditional on one young person being signed on to work, that would be 20 households getting income, who would spend it, thus we would have the multiplier effect of cash stimulus.
If employers could employ young people starting their first job on a reduced wage and insurance rate for a set period, perhaps more would get that essential job experience that makes them employable. Remembering the months of applying for jobs before I got my first job as a school leaver in another recession, I can say that door of "no-experience, no work reference" slamming in your face is terrible for 18-year-olds anywhere in the world.
Work permits for foreigners is a difficult subject for any country in the midst of economic woes, and clearly illegal traffic happens with Turkey from its next door neighbors.
But new residents ask, "Why lump them together with people legally investing money and expertise in companies?" Why do women who have married under the new Family Law Act, which requires them to equally contribute to the married partnerships income and household, get refused work permits, even under the special "exceptions" category? I tried my own application in that category a few years ago when the ink on the new work permit law was barely dry, by going directly to the ministry, only to see my dossier tossed back and told to apply the standard way via an employer. Beside me was an accepted application file for 15 Latvian dancing ladies in an Izmir Gazino. Citizenship was a straightforward procedure. As far as is known, only one woman married to a Turk, a resident in Bodrum, has been granted an exception-based work permit after paying a lawyer generously to pursue the subject.
Why bother to discuss the subject of work permits at all? The subject was prompted by the surprising release of statistics from the vast Ankara building of the Turkish Ministry of Labor and Social Security, who announced last week that they issued 10,705 work permits to foreigners in 2008. That may sound generous, but they went on to say that "Most of the work permits issued to foreigners last year were valid for only a short time. A total of 6,543 foreigners received work permits for a short period of time."
A short time can be under the law as short as one month for cultural, scientific or tourism purposes. So visiting artists (Paris?) scientists, traveling musicians and bands and even foreign tour company representatives fall under this category. The ministry went on "Work permits for 3,583 foreigners were extended in 2008." Many of those work permits were won years ago. What’s the math? Just 579 new permits were granted in one year. No new approval of a long-term work permit is known of in Bodrum, where, like any regional center, real investment in capital and people is needed.
Ah, but then celebrities and footballers have carte blanche in Turkey and seem to get permission to work without so much as a trade school certificate, let alone a university degree, shared between half of them. Then, there is the other side of the coin. Take the case of English friends who seized on being a distributing agent in Turkey for a product that seems to tick all the boxes Ğ low carbon footprint, saves energy, improves peoples’ houses after the builders have left, etc., after having used it themselves.
Having gone through the expense of setting up a Turkish company with all the laudable British good intentions of "doing the right thing," they find themselves now paying taxes, and the accountants’ fees, plus social security. Yes, they pay compulsory social security already, before they know the answer as to if the company director will get a work permit. Having waded through finding school certificates back to the age of 11, (they can read), they now hear stories of university degrees only being accepted. They also have been quietly told that officialdom probably will only accept firms officially employing 15 or more Turkish employees, a massive outlay that fails to fit any start-up, entrepreneurial model of investment.
But then as one of the foreign company owners observed on an Internet forum, there is no discernible support for small businesses, let alone start-ups in Turkey, so there is no need to take it personally. In an economic climate where the latest figures of 16 percent registered unemployment have been released before the next month when the latest young school and university graduates hit the employment market, there hasn’t been any effort to stimulate employment, particularly of the young.
If 20 foreign small company owners were allowed their own work permit conditional on one young person being signed on to work, that would be 20 households getting income, who would spend it, thus we would have the multiplier effect of cash stimulus.
If employers could employ young people starting their first job on a reduced wage and insurance rate for a set period, perhaps more would get that essential job experience that makes them employable. Remembering the months of applying for jobs before I got my first job as a school leaver in another recession, I can say that door of "no-experience, no work reference" slamming in your face is terrible for 18-year-olds anywhere in the world.
Work permits for foreigners is a difficult subject for any country in the midst of economic woes, and clearly illegal traffic happens with Turkey from its next door neighbors.
But new residents ask, "Why lump them together with people legally investing money and expertise in companies?" Why do women who have married under the new Family Law Act, which requires them to equally contribute to the married partnerships income and household, get refused work permits, even under the special "exceptions" category? I tried my own application in that category a few years ago when the ink on the new work permit law was barely dry, by going directly to the ministry, only to see my dossier tossed back and told to apply the standard way via an employer. Beside me was an accepted application file for 15 Latvian dancing ladies in an Izmir Gazino. Citizenship was a straightforward procedure. As far as is known, only one woman married to a Turk, a resident in Bodrum, has been granted an exception-based work permit after paying a lawyer generously to pursue the subject.
Why bother to discuss the subject of work permits at all? The subject was prompted by the surprising release of statistics from the vast Ankara building of the Turkish Ministry of Labor and Social Security, who announced last week that they issued 10,705 work permits to foreigners in 2008. That may sound generous, but they went on to say that "Most of the work permits issued to foreigners last year were valid for only a short time. A total of 6,543 foreigners received work permits for a short period of time."
A short time can be under the law as short as one month for cultural, scientific or tourism purposes. So visiting artists (Paris?) scientists, traveling musicians and bands and even foreign tour company representatives fall under this category. The ministry went on "Work permits for 3,583 foreigners were extended in 2008." Many of those work permits were won years ago. What’s the math? Just 579 new permits were granted in one year. No new approval of a long-term work permit is known of in Bodrum, where, like any regional center, real investment in capital and people is needed.