Importance Given on Women’s Employment in Turkey Increases
There are 100 women for every 102 men in the world. In the total workforce, however, there are 39 women for 61 men. Climbing up the career pyramid, this rate drops rapidly. Considering the wage inequality ratios, it is estimated that closing the wage gap between men and women in the OECD countries will take around 50 years. In this issue, activities for women’s employment in Turkey are gaining momentum.
ISKUR SUPPORTS WOMEN’S EMPLOYMENT
Cafer Uzunkaya, General Manager of İŞKUR (Turkish Employment Agency) stated that according to data from the Turkish Statistics Institute, the women’s rate of participation in the workforce has risen to 34.7% from 25%.
Uzunkaya said that women’s employment is one of the areas they are most successful at, and added that they are focusing on activities to provide more employment for women in the labor market.
LC WAIKIKI RANKS TOP
LC Waikiki is the top ranking company among the “women friendly companies and groups” that provides the largest contribution to women’s employment in Turkey.
The company increased the number of employees by 7 thousand by the end of 2017, Of the 7 thousand new employees, 4 thousand were women. LC Waikiki employed 23,000 women in 2017, and now has a 54.8% female employee ratio. The company has 4,056 managers and the female manager ratio is 41.9%.
DIKAD TO PROVIDE EMPLOYMENT FOR WOMEN IN DIYARBAKIR
Reyhan Aktar, Chairman of Diyarbakır Business Women‘s Association (DIKAD) shared notes on women’s participation in business life and the activities carried out within the association. Aktar pointed out the importance they attach to the employment of disadvantaged women and said they are carrying out activities for this purpose.
Noting that they have reached more than 380 youth and women until now, Aktar said, “We are working hard to engage women more in economic life in the region. In this sense, we still have a textile workshop. 20 people have participated in this workshop and at least 50% of them are now employed. A new textile organized specialty zone is being established in Diyarbakır. 8 to 10 thousand people are expected to be employed here. Those who fill this potential will be mostly women. In this context, DIKAD will establish a Vocational Training Workshop. We are working on this project together with Deputy Mayor of Kayapınar, Ozan Balcı, and we have signed a protocol recently. In the Vocational Training Workshop, which we will establish on a site allocated to us, entrepreneurship trainings will be given and it will have a kitchen and textile workshop.
HALFETI WOMEN CONTRIBUTE TO FAMILY BUDGET
In the Halfeti district of Şanlıurfa, 150 women were employed in the textile workshop established by a private company with the initiatives of the District Governor and Deputy Mayor Şeref Albayrak. The textile workshop, which exports their products and provides employment opportunities for women, a large number of them being university graduates, satisfied its employees.
750 WOMEN TO BE EMPLOYED IN BURSA
Yeşim Textile, operating in Bursa, a city of textiles, will employ 1,000 people including 750 women by the end of 2019. Şenol Şankaya, Senior Manager at Yeşim Textile, said “We will enter into a new long-term production process until the end of 2019 with around a thousand new people to be employed in our company.”
Being one of the companies that employ the biggest number of women in Turkey under one roof and manufacture apparel and home textiles for the global brands, Yeşim Tekstil plans to increase the number of its employees to 3,500 by providing additional employment of 1,000 people until the end of 2019 within the framework of their future planning.