Refugees and Turkish Labor Market: Interview with Emre Eren Korkmaz
The Turkish government has been taken some steps further mainly in education and employment areas. Refugees have right to receive work permits, so they can legally work in the labour market and refugee children can access the education. But apart from the massive number of refugees in Turkey and structural problems of the industry and education which present difficulties for citizens, Turkey has been under State of Emergency rule since the coup attempt. This creates additional uncertainty, given the high turnover of bureaucrats, closure of NGOs and other related anti-democratic measures. Such political conditions do not provide necessary conditions for the state, social actors and NGOs to focus on particular policy issues with the aim of finding long-term solutions. In a nutshell, there are some positive steps but also challenges and what makes things more difficult is that these problems in employment or education are faced by both citizens and refugees. So, it’s not easy to address only refugee-related issues, a more comprehensive and collaborative approach is needed and yet, there is no such environment.
From a different perspective, last month, a minister stated that they should convince refugees to stay in Turkey even all decide to return to Syria because Turkish manufacture depends on Syrian labour.
▻http://bmigration.com/emre-eren-korkmaz-interview