Minimum wage statement from Minister Şimşek
Minister Mehmet Şimşek announced that the 2025 minimum wage has been set at 22,104 TL. Stating that the minimum wage has increased above inflation, Minister Şimşek drew attention to the importance of price stability for the permanent improvement of employees' purchasing power.
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The 2025 monthly net minimum wage has been announced as 22,104 TL.
A last-minute statement regarding the minimum wage hike came from Minister of Treasury and Finance Mehmet Şimşek.
Minister Şimşek emphasized that the 2025 minimum wage is over 620 dollars at the current exchange rate.
"We have always stood by our employees during our governments' terms," said Şimşek, underlining that the minimum wage is higher than in developing countries such as Romania, Bulgaria, Mexico, China, Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia, Russia, Egypt, and India.
Minister Şimşek noted the following in a statement on his social media account:
Price stability is a prerequisite for the permanent increase in the purchasing power and welfare of our employees. The ultimate goal of the program we are implementing is sustainable, high growth and a fairer income distribution.
We have always stood by our employees during our governments' terms.
In the 2005-2024 period, we increased employment by 13.7 million people, meaning we provided an additional employment of over 680 thousand annually on average. Since June 2023, when we started implementing our program, the increase in employment has reached 1.4 million.
The minimum wage is increasing above inflation. In 2023, inflation was 64.8 percent, while the minimum wage increase was 107.3 percent. While the inflation expectation for 2024 is around 45 percent, the minimum wage increased by 49.1 percent.
In the 2003-2024 period, while the average annual growth was 5.3 percent, the real increase in the minimum wage was 5.6 percent.
The share of labor payments in gross value added reached 37.6 percent in the third quarter of 2024, the highest value since the series began in 1998. The increase in the last year was 6.1 points.
The current equivalent of the 112-dollar minimum wage in 2002, adjusted for US inflation, is 196 dollars. For 2025, the minimum wage is over 620 dollars at the current exchange rate. The dollar equivalent of the minimum wage has risen to 5.6 times the 2002 level, and 3.2 times when adjusted for US inflation.
Our current minimum wage level is higher than in developing countries such as Romania, Bulgaria, Mexico, China, Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia, Russia, Egypt, and India.
