The Procedures And Principles Regarding The İmplementation of Wage Support To Be Performed Within The Scope of The Law On Unemployment Insurance No. 4447

The Procedures and Principles clarify the application principles, the conditions for being entitled and the payment provisions of wage support.

Application Principles
a. In Terms of the Employees Sent on Unpaid Leave and Who Cannot Benefit from the Short-Term Working Allowance

• Monthly notifications regarding the employees sent on unpaid leave are carried out by the employers, through the link of “uyg.sgk.gov.tr/IsverenSistemi” until the third day of the following month in which the unpaid leave practice is applied.
• Employers should put a check mark on “28-Pandemi Unpaid Leave” in terms of the reason for missing days within the relevant month in Monthly Premium and Service Document / Brief and Premium Service Declarations.
• Employers employing insured household employees for more than 10 days in a month should notify this change to the Provincial Directorates/Centers of SSI until the end of the month in which unpaid leave practice is applied.
• In terms of the employees who cannot benefit from the short-term working allowance, the reason of “18-Short-Term Working Allowance” declared within the Monthly Premium, Service Document/Brief and Premium Service Declarations should be updated as “28-Pandemi Unpaid Leave” within the specified period and the employers should apply for short-term working allowance within the scope of the mentioned conditions.
• Employers who made notification via another code mistakenly should apply to the relevant provincial directorate/center of SSI in order for changing the code regarding the missing day.
• Throughout the period of implementation of wage support; employer shall notify the following information through application screen of the SSI; (i) the number of days which the employee sent on unpaid leave in relevant month, (ii) the ID number of the employee, (iii) international bank account number (“IBAN”) of the employee and (iv) mobile phone number of the employee.

b. Employees Whose Employment Agreements Are Terminated After 15 March 2020 Within the Scope of Article 51 of the Law No. 4447 and Who Cannot Benefit from Unemployment Benefits In Despite of Application

• The wage support payments are to be carried out by Turkish Employment Agency (“İŞKUR”) by itself (ex-officio) without the need of application.
• Wage support payments of the unemployed who have not applied for unemployment benefit are to be carried out by İŞKUR upon the application made by the unemployed for the unemployment benefit through the website of https://esube.iskur.gov.tr/ or https://www.turkiye.gov.tr/ (e-state).

II. Conditions for Being Entitled
a. In Terms of the Employees Sent on Unpaid Leave and Who Cannot Benefit from the Short-Term Working Allowance
In terms of the employees who cannot benefit from the short-term working allowance due to not fulfilling the necessary social security premium requirements in despite of acceptance of the short-term working application can benefit from the wage support for the period of unpaid leave provided that the below conditions are met and grounds regarding missing days are updated by the employers as unpaid leave applied as per the Provisional Article 10 of TLC.

• To be sent on unpaid leave as per the Provisional Article 10 of Turkish Labor Code no.4857 (“TLC”)
• Not to benefit from the short-term working allowance
• Not to receive a pension fund from any social security organization
• To be notified to the SSI in terms of the document type no. 01, 04, 05, 06, 12, 14, 20, 29, 32, 35, 39, 52, 53, 54 and 55.
• To provide the necessary notifications to be carried out by the employer.

Employees whose unemployment benefits are re-started until the expiration of the period unemployment benefit that such employee has been entitled before shall be entitled to the wage support in cash starting from the date on which the unemployment benefit has ended, provided not to exceed the 3 months’ period in which termination is prohibited.

III. Period of Payment and Payment Amount
The period of wage support includes the unpaid leave periods applied on the dates between 17 April 2020 and 17 July 2020. In the event that the period of termination prohibition is extended by The President, the period of wage support shall also be extended for the same period.

The payment to be made for each person who is entitled to wage support corresponds to the amount obtained by multiplying the number of days for which such employee is entitled to payment with the amount calculated after deducting stamp tax from the daily amount determined as TRY 39.24 per day.

In case of being employed in more than one workplace, the number of social security premium payment days notified by the employers from such workplaces shall be added up. Wage support shall be paid on behalf of these employees for the days remaining less than 30 days. If a social security premium notification is made in the relevant month for a total of 30 days or more, these employees shall not be entitled to wage support.

IV. Statutory Limitations and Sanctions
The SSI shall convey the notifications made by the employers within the scope of wage support to İŞKUR until the fifth day of each month following the application for unpaid leave which is notified on monthly basis. İŞKUR shall commence to pay wage support based on the abovementioned data on the eighth day of each month.

In case the determined dates encounter with the days of weekend, national holiday and general holiday, the transactions shall be carried out on the first following business day.

Within the scope of the payment methods, apart from the money order or EFT to the IBAN, payment via postal checking account and payment on PTT (Post Office) Branches, the method of “paying at the door” is also available.

You may access the Turkish version of the Procedures and Principles from here.

Aslı Pamukkale, Partner
Özgür Güner, Managing Associate
Hande Solak, Associate
Burak Batı, Trainee Lawyer