Apprehension in Turkey’s labor market as Syrians return home – Syria Direct

MERSIN — Hussein al-Marandi can feel something changing in Gaziantep. For years, the Turkish city around an hour’s drive from the border with his native Aleppo has been an economic hub, hosting thousands of Syrian manufacturers and traders—and even more Syrian workers. Today, many of those workers are returning home, “creating a shortage,” he said. 

Al-Marandi, a member of the Gaziantep Chamber of Commerce, owns the Almarandi Housewares company based in the city. He employs 20 Syrians, three of whom have returned since the Assad regime fell last December, while others plan to return after the upcoming Eid al-Adha holiday in early June, he told Syria Direct. 

Some 200,000 Syrians have returned from Turkey since the Assad regime fell on December 8, 2024, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on April 28. The number of Syrians with temporary protection status (kimlik) in Turkey has fallen to 2.8 million, according to the country’s Department of Migration, down from 3.1 million one year ago. 

A shrinking Syrian labor force, with its “efficiency, dependability with no absenteeism, and lower wages compared to Turkish labor, not to mention fewer legal requirements, is creating apprehension in the Turkish labor market,” al-Marandi said. 

Businesses in Turkey are trying to adapt to the new reality by “hiring Turkish workers and refusing to hire new Syrians for fear of them leaving and impacting continuity,” al-Marandi added. 

In his business, Turkish employees can step into administrative roles, but production jobs like loading goods are largely filled by Syrians. The company, which has operated in Turkey for more than a decade, also has a branch in Idlib, where he plans to expand operations. “The option is there for returning Syrian workers to stay on with the company, in Syria,” he said. 

Companies return

Touring the southern Turkish port city of Mersin, Syria Direct observed many Syrian-owned shops liquidating their inventory, as owners prepare to return home at the end of the current school year or sooner. 

Ali Hijazi already made the move. His food business, which specialized in selling Syrian products and employed 12 Syrian employees, declined by 95 percent after the regime fell in December, he said. So, at the start of the year, he decided to “liquidate the goods, and moved to Aleppo within a week.” 

Back in Syria, Hijazi returned to the trade he worked in before fleeing to Turkey: selling household appliances. In Aleppo’s al-Sukkari neighborhood, he opened al-Ward Trading Company to import appliances from China, Turkey and Dubai for sale in the local market, alongside some domestic products. 

Returning to Syria came with a host of challenges, Hijazi said, including “high transportation costs and customs duties—estimated at $1,000 per ton—and difficulty coordinating with suppliers in Turkey due to their fears over the security situation.” He also pointed to “a lack of official support for relocating small and medium-sized businesses to Syria” and “poor infrastructure, since most roads linking Turkey with Syria need paving.” 

Losing more Syrian workers would have a large impact on Turkey’s labor market, Hijazi expected. “Many Syrians entered the labor market, especially in the construction, agriculture and service sectors,” he explained. “Their presence led to intense competition with local labor, driving wages down in some professions.” Syrian workers helped “stimulate some economic sectors and revive certain commercial areas,” where their absence would leave a void. 

While Hijazi shut down his business in Turkey, others—like the Nur Muzaiek trading company—are attempting to maintain their existing businesses while opening new ventures inside Syria. Muhammad Mahnaya, the company’s Mersin branch manager, said it aims to “strengthen commercial ties between Turkey and Syria, without giving up either side.” 

The percentage of Syrians who have returned so far is small, so the impact on the Turkish market is limited, Mahnaya added. “Most of those going back are families forced to return by the difficult living conditions and high costs in Turkey,” he said. 

Broad economic impacts

Turkey was suffering a labor shortage in certain sectors—agriculture, construction and manufacturing—even before the Assad regime fell, heightening the impact of Syrian workers’ return in recent months. 

Last summer, some Turkish industrial sectors lost workers during a wave of anti-Syrian violence and hate speech. At the Balbin Textile company in Istanbul, production dropped by between 40 and 50 percent over the previous year after Syrian workers left due to persecution and social pressures in Turkey.

Despite the return of more Syrians since the regime fell, Turkish Minister of Labor and Social Security Vedat Işıkhan said in February that initial data indicated there would be no serious changes to the labor market. He noted it was still early, and that the number of returns could increase with the end of the academic year in June. Ankara was monitoring whether a labor shortage would result, he added.

In April, the Ministry of Labor and Social Security launched a nationwide study to assess the impact of Syrian returns on the labor market in Turkey, based on surveys of 16,000 businesses in 17 sectors. 

So far, Ankara has not presented a clear vision for “the continued presence of Syrians, or facilitating their stay” despite the impact of returns on Turkey’s economy, Istanbul-based economic expert Radwan al-Dibs told Syria Direct. On the contrary, it has moved to facilitate returns.

“If the Turkish government truly wanted Syrians to stay, it would have made it easier for them to update their records, granted them work permits and made it easier for them to move around and travel,” he added. 

“The owners of construction companies and clothing and leather manufacturers in Turkey are complaining of an acute labor shortage, forcing them to cut the number of employees and level of production, while many factories in Istanbul have shut down,” al-Dibs said. 

More than 109,370 Syrians work legally in Turkey, according to the Ministry of Labor, while an estimated 500,000 work informally. The latter “work in construction, contracting, agriculture and animal husbandry, without legal protections to preserve their rights,” al-Dibs added. 

Syrians account for around 20 percent of the 1.5 million total workers in Turkey’s textile sector. The high number of workers leaving the sector is a serious concern for the industry, Muzaffer Cevizli, Chairman of the Board of Turkish textile company Giymkent said in January. 

Syrians and Afghans also make up around 80 percent of Turkey’s agricultural workforce, particularly in livestock farming. Ahmet Eyyupoglu, a board member of the Union of Agricultural Chambers, warned last November that losing foreign workers could collapse the livestock industry.

Beyond the labor market, the real estate market is feeling the effects of departures. In some parts of Istanbul, “rental prices have fallen, while the number of vacant buildings increased,” al-Dibs said. Private schools have been hit too, “after the number of Syrian students, who make up a large percentage of these schools, fell, prompting some of them to shut down branches,” he added. 

Al-Dibs expected some sectors to suffer losses of 20 percent as Syrians return, especially at the end of the school year. While Turkish workers have replaced some of the vacancies, “their labor costs are 20 to 50 percent higher, meaning more pressure on employers and consumers alike,” he said. 

Future of the market

Alaa Hammami, an economics researcher and business development consultant, estimated an average daily return of 11,000 Syrians, based on his review of published government data. The capacity of border crossings has increased in response, he added.

Given the large number of Syrians working in Turkey, as well as more than 10,000 Syrian businesses, “the return of refugees has direct impacts on the Turkish labor market,” Hammami told Syria Direct. These include “labor shortages in some sectors, and higher wages in some professions as factory owners are forced to raise pay to attract workers,” he said. The salaries of some textile and service sector employees have increased by 20 to 30 percent, he added. 

The return of Syrians has also led to “a decline in the activity of some shops and restaurants, especially in provinces such as Istanbul, Gaziantep and Urfa,” alongside a “slowdown in textile production in Gaziantep and Bursa due to labor shortages,” Hammami added. 

In the long term, Hammami expected “2,000 to 3,000 Syrian companies to close over the coming year,” alongside “increased production costs and inflation, reflected in higher food prices due to declining local production.”

Ankara released a National Employment Strategy in February, setting goals for the labor market through 2028. It includes a strategy to identify areas that require foreign labor and compensate for shortages caused by departing Syrians, as well as promoting “reverse brain drain” by attracting Turkish workers abroad. The plan also aims to increase support for local workers and encourage flexible work to ensure continued production in impacted sectors. 

In parallel, the Turkish government is seeking alternative labor, and is expected to “start recruiting from Central Asia and Africa to fill the gap created by Syrians’ departure,” Hammami said. 

To preserve the refugee labor force, Hammami did not rule out the possibility of Ankara “granting long-term work permits for skilled Syrian workers, launching permanent residency programs that will make their lives more stable or facilitating movement between Turkey and Syria without stringent restrictions.”

In Gaziantep, al-Marandi hopes any such measures will come soon, to ensure that a segment of Syrians who have positively impacted the Turkish economy remain in the country. 

But if that does not happen, “Syrians will succeed in resuming their work after returning to their country,” just as they “quickly adapted and contributed to the Turkish economy,” Hijazi said. 

This report was originally published in Arabic and translated into English by Mateo Nelson.