Inflation & Prices

Turkey’s 49% Minimum Wage Hike Balances Between Unions, Markets

  • Workers demanded bigger 2024 increase and two-time adjustment
  • Decision complicates efforts by central bank to curb inflation

An employee organizes tables outside a cafe. The monthly net minimum salary will be set at 17,002 liras ($578).

Photographer: Kerem Uzel/Bloomberg
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Turkey will raise the minimum wage by 49% in the new year, close to a level that several Wall Street lenders have warned would complicate the central bank’s efforts to curb inflation.

The monthly net minimum salary will be set at 17,002 liras ($577) as part of a single adjustment, Labor Minister Vedat Isikhan said in a televised news conference in Ankara on Wednesday. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley have suggested the central bank could further tighten policy should the hike be higher than 40%-50%.