ANKARA, Dec 28 (Portal) – President Tayyip Erdogan scrapped an age limit for retirement on Wednesday, allowing more than 2 million Turkish workers to retire immediately with less than six months before an election.
The announcement came during a press conference and follows Erdogan’s ruling AK Party conducting a hefty hike in the minimum wage last week as part of a campaign to reclaim voter support norms eroded by inflation, a fall in the lira and a sharp drop in the cost of living.
The new regulation benefits people who started their employment before September 1999, when the pension insurance law changed, and who have completed 20 to 25 years of employment subject to social security contributions.
Previously, the retirement age was 58 for women and 60 for men.
Labor and Social Security Minister Vedat Bilgin said the new scheme would cost over 100 billion liras ($5.35 billion).
“We don’t know how much more than 100 billion .
Erdogan previously said 2.25 million people could retire immediately. There are currently 13.9 million pensioners in Turkey.
Union groups had protested the minimum age for several years, demanding that workers should instead only complete the mandatory number of working days before retirement. The move is intended to give Erdogan a boost ahead of a critical election in June.
In two decades in power, Erdogan has overseen a crackdown on dissent and implemented unorthodox economic policies in recent years that have helped push the lira to a tenth of its value against the dollar a decade ago.
($1 = 18.7021 lire)
Reporting by Ece Toksabay; additional reporting by Huseyin Hayatsever; Edited by Aurora Ellis and Grant McCool
Our standards: The Thomson Portal Trust Principles.