New Regulations on OHS, Short-Term Employment, Cash Wage Support and Termination Ban

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, new regulations were introduced by the Government.

In this context, the new regulations brought by the Law numbered 7252 published in the Official Gazette numbered 31199 and 28.07.2020 dated, are summarized as follows:

Short Work Allowance Extension

With the regulation in the provisional article 23 of the Unemployment Insurance Law numbered 4447; The President has been authorized to extend the short-term employment until 31 December 2020 for separate sectors.

In this way, short time working period extension can be made on a sector basis.

SSI Premium Support

Social security premium support has been introduced for employees who benefit from short work or cash compensation. Conditions are as below:

• It will be applicable for the employees benefited from the short-term employment allowance in the private sector workplaces that applied for a short-term employment before 1/7/2020.
• It will be applicable for the employees, who applied before the date of 1/7/2020 and benefited from cash wage support, and returned to his / her normal weekly working period.
• It would be applied if the short-term employment at the workplace ends and normal weekly working hours are returned to the same workplace.
• Until 31/12/2020, it would be applied for three months from the month, following the end of the short work.
• The total amount would be the employee and employer portions calculated over social security cap (minimum wage).
• Each month, that support will be applied by deducting all premiums to be paid to the Social Security Institution and the support amount will be covered by the Fund.
• Support period to be provided to the employer for each month; For those who receive short-time work allowance, that cannot exceed the monthly average number of days in which the insured receives short-time work allowance and cannot exceed the average number of days in which they receive cash benefit support.
• It does not apply to the retired employees, insurance holders working in home services and insurance holders working abroad.
• In case that it is found to be improperly benefiting from short work or cash wage support, the workplace cannot benefit from this support or is deemed to have benefited unwarrantedly. In case that it is found out that support is used improperly, the support is collected from the employer with the penalty and interest.
• Employers who benefit from this incentive/support cannot benefit from other insurance premium discounts, incentives and supports for the same insured month.
• Payment of the support amount provided to the employer by the Fund corresponding to the insured's share, cannot be requested from the employer.
• The amounts covered by the Fund under this article are not taken into account as income, expense or cost in income and corporate tax practices.

Termination Ban

The President has been given the authority to extend the termination ban with three months periods separately until 30 June 2021.

In addition, the following situations are excluded from the scope of the termination ban:

• Expiration of time for fixed term employment or service contracts,
• The workplace is closed for any reason and its activity ends.
• Any service procurements made in accordance with the relevant legislation and the termination of work in construction works.

OHS Liability Date Change

The obligation to receive OHS Services for workplaces with fewer than 50 employees and in less dangerous class has been postponed to 31 December 2023.

You can find the link of the related official gazette (in Turkish):