Galloping inflation, currency at half mast, but strong economic growth… Faced with an impoverishment of the Turkish population, faced with 84% inflation over the year, the legal minimum wage will be raised on January 1 to 8,500 Turkish liras (TRY) net, i.e. around $455, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced.
Third time in a year that the Turkish minimum wage has been raised, the minimum wage stood at 2,826 pounds at the end of December 2021, i.e. just under 300 dollars at the time, it had been raised to 4,253 TRY last January and to 5,500 in July, at a level insufficient to live in large cities like Istanbul.
In total, the base salary has been multiplied by three in one year.
Turkish currency has lost almost 30% of its value in one year
Acknowledging that the country is going through a “critical period”, less than six months before the presidential and legislative elections scheduled for next spring, Recep Erdogan promised the “rapid decline in inflation from the end of the month”.
“We are determined to reduce inflation by 20% by the end of next year,” promised the Turkish president.
The unions had demanded 9,500 TRY per month but the head of state said he had failed to reach an agreement.
Consumer price inflation already slowed in November in Turkey for the first since May 2021, to 84.4% year on year from 85.5% the previous month, according to official data.
A group of independent economists, however, estimates that the real inflation rate is more than double, while the Turkish currency has lost almost 30% of its value over the past year.
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