Turkish labor minister announced on Monday that salaries of 3 million employees have been paid to bail out firms amid the coronavirus lockdown.
More than 268,000 firms applied for the short-term employment allowance, which the government announced earlier this month to cushion the fallout of the pandemic, Zehra Zumrut Selcuk tweeted.
“We support our employees and employers by mobilizing all our resources,” she said.
She went on to say that 40% of the applications came from the manufacturing sector, 15% from retailers and wholesalers, 12% from hotels and food companies, 6% from the educational sector, and 27% from miscellaneous firms.
Any firm forced out of business due to a Force Majeure, such as the pandemic, can approach the government.
As part of the allowance, the government will pay 60% of the staff salaries for a period of three months — within the ranges of 1,752 Turkish liras ($255) to 4,381 liras ($640).
The government will also pay a daily allowance of 39.24 liras ($5.7) for a period of three months to workers forced to take unpaid leave.
Last week, the country barred employers from laying off workers during the COVID-19 pandemic for the three-month period.
