Workforce Restructuring and Termination in Türkiye: A Guide for Multinational Employers

1. Begin with the Turkish employer and the local legal perimeter

A group decision to reduce headcount does not terminate anyone’s Turkish employment. The Turkish employing entity must identify its lawful decision-maker, translate the business decision into a local measure and complete the act required under Turkish law. Start by confirming the contractual employer, the workplace or workplaces, the employing entity’s authorised representatives and the entity that carries payroll and social-security registrations. A foreign parent may set budgets or approve a new operating model, but its resolution is evidence of a commercial decision, not a substitute for a termination notice issued through the Turkish employer.

The legal classification comes before the implementation calendar. Labour Act No. 4857 applies subject to the occupational and workplace exclusions in Article 4. Maritime, aviation, agricultural, domestic-service or other excluded work may require a different statutory analysis. Indefinite and fixed-term contracts also follow different routes. A fixed term requires objective conditions, and serial renewals can affect its legal character. The HR inventory should therefore record each person’s employing entity, worksite, role, contract type, start date and any amendment instead of applying one global template to the entire population.

Discrimination screening is part of the legal analysis, not a late communications exercise. Article 5 restricts unequal treatment on protected grounds in the formation, performance and termination of employment. A collective labour agreement, union membership, workplace union representation or protected union activity may add further constraints. The proposed population should be tested for direct and indirect patterns across comparable roles, sites and protected groups. Selection reasons should be capable of explanation from contemporaneous business records and should not be reconstructed after a challenge.

Job-security coverage requires its own employee-by-employee check. In general, Article 18 concerns an employee on an indefinite-term contract who has at least six months’ seniority in a workplace with thirty or more employees. Workplaces of the same employer in the same line of business are counted together, and service across that employer’s workplaces is aggregated. The six-month requirement does not apply to underground workers. Certain senior employer representatives and assistants fall outside the specified job-security provisions. These rules cannot safely be reduced to the headcount on one spreadsheet tab or the employee’s corporate grade.

2. Valid reason requires a documented Turkish business case

For a covered employee, the employer must establish a valid reason connected with capability or conduct, or with the operational requirements of the enterprise, workplace or work. Restructuring normally relies on the operational branch. That does not make every cost reduction automatically valid. The Turkish file should explain the local problem, the organisational decision, the roles affected, the implementation date and how the decision changes the need for work. The employer bears the burden of proving the stated valid reason in a reinstatement dispute.

A board presentation from the parent can support context, but it rarely answers the local questions by itself. A defensible record may include Turkish budgets, workload or production data, reporting-line changes, discontinued functions, automation evidence, site plans and the approval chain. It should connect the group objective to the Turkish entity’s actual organisation. It should also show the chronology: when the need was identified, who assessed the local positions, what alternatives were considered and when the final decision was made. A file assembled only after notices are served is harder to reconcile with the reasons stated to employees.

Turkish legislation does not prescribe one universal redundancy scoring matrix. If the plan selects among employees in comparable positions, the criteria should still be objective, relevant to the restructured work, consistently applied and supported by evidence available at the time. Skills, role requirements, documented qualifications and operational needs may be relevant; protected grounds, union activity and retaliation are not. The employer should test the results for anomalies and preserve the source data, instructions to assessors and reasons for resolving close cases. A spreadsheet score is a tool, not the legal reason for dismissal.

The distinction between the employer’s stated reason and an employee’s allegation matters in litigation. The employer proves the valid reason it gave. An employee alleging another concealed reason bears the burden for that allegation under Article 20, while discrimination and union law can contain additional burden and remedy rules. Communications should therefore be consistent without being scripted to obscure the facts. Avoid describing an operational redundancy as misconduct, and avoid performance language unless the employer has actually relied on performance and complied with the procedure that follows from that choice.

3. Choose the correct route: notice, defence, change or just cause

Article 19 requires a covered termination notice to be written and to state the reason clearly and precisely. Generic phrases such as “reorganisation,” “efficiency” or “management decision” may fail to explain what happened to the position. The notice should match the approved Turkish business case and the affected role. It should also identify the effective date and address the applicable notice arrangement without turning a general article into an individual calculation. A parent-company letter, an English slide deck or a manager’s oral announcement does not replace the local written notice.

When termination is based on conduct or performance, the employee’s defence must be obtained before the decision for an indefinite-term contract. The request should identify the matter sufficiently for a meaningful response and provide a real opportunity to answer. That procedure differs from an operational redundancy. It also preserves the employer’s right to immediate termination where the conditions of Article 25(II) are genuinely met. The route must follow the facts; a restructuring concern should not be relabelled as misconduct to avoid notice or payments.

Ordinary termination of an indefinite-term contract engages minimum Article 17 notice periods of two, four, six or eight weeks depending on the statutory seniority band. Contract or collective terms may increase those periods. Payment in lieu can end the relationship without working the notice, but it does not switch off the job-security rules. If notice is worked, Article 27 provides new-job-search leave and specifies consequences when the employer does not grant it or requires work during it. Payroll should identify the legal basis and wage components for every sum rather than report one unexplained total.

Redeployment, relocation, reduced benefits or changed duties may amount to a substantial change rather than a redundancy. Article 22 requires written notification. A substantial change that the employee does not accept in writing within six working days does not bind that employee. Rejection is not automatic consent to dismissal: the employer may terminate only by explaining in writing a valid reason for the proposed change or another valid reason, observing notice and leaving the employee’s challenge rights intact. The proposal, comparison of old and new conditions, delivery evidence and response must be kept together.

Immediate termination under Article 25 is a separate, fact-sensitive mechanism. Its categories include health, morality and good faith, compelling reasons and detention-related absence. Morality and good-faith cases under Articles 24 and 25 are generally subject to a six-working-day period from learning of the conduct and a one-year longstop from the event; the one-year limit does not apply where the employee obtained a pecuniary benefit. The investigation file should preserve the allegation, source, knowledge date, evidence steps, defence and decision chronology. No personal deadline should be calculated until the triggering facts and service record have been verified.

4. Collective dismissal under Article 29 is a separate compliance track

Article 29 applies where collective dismissals arise from economic, technological, structural or similar operational requirements. The threshold is based on the number employed at the workplace: for 20 to 100 employees, at least 10 dismissals; for 101 to 300, at least 10 percent; and for 301 or more, at least 30. Covered Article 17 terminations are aggregated when they occur on the same or different dates within one month. A phased plan therefore requires a rolling analysis; dividing one project into smaller notice batches does not necessarily take it outside the article.

At least thirty days before an Article 29 collective dismissal, the employer must notify workplace union representatives, the relevant regional directorate and İŞKUR in writing. The notice states the reasons, the number and groups affected and the period in which dismissals will occur. The İŞKUR portal provides a collective personnel notification form, but the portal is an operational surface; it does not alter the statutory recipients, content or timing. Confirm the competent local directorate, current portal method and proof of delivery for the particular workplace.

Consultation with workplace union representatives addresses whether the dismissals can be prevented or reduced and how adverse effects can be mitigated. The meeting must be documented. The process should therefore occur while the consultation can still engage with the proposal, not after every individual outcome has become irreversible. Keep invitations, information shared, questions, responses, alternatives considered and the signed or otherwise evidenced meeting record. Consultation is not an automatic agreement requirement, but a paper-only formality undermines the purpose of the statutory process.

Collective-dismissal notices take effect thirty days after notification to the regional directorate. A complete and permanent workplace closure follows its own Article 29 advance-notification and workplace-announcement route. After a collective dismissal becomes final, qualified former employees must be called preferentially if equivalent hiring is planned within six months. Seasonal and campaign workers are outside these collective rules where dismissal is inherent in the nature of that work. Each exception should be applied from actual workplace facts, not the label used in the HR system.

Article 29 cannot be used to prevent Articles 18 to 21 from applying. Collective compliance therefore sits alongside each employee’s individual reason, notice, selection and reinstatement rights. Union representatives and union-related cases may also engage the separate protection and remedies under Act No. 6356. The project plan should include both tracks: one workstream for notifications and consultation, and another for the legal and evidential quality of every individual decision.

5. Mediation, reinstatement and court risk

A covered employee challenging an unstated or invalid reason must apply for mediation within one month after service of the termination notice. If mediation ends without agreement, the employee may file the reinstatement action within two weeks after the final record. Where a direct action is rejected solely because mediation was not attempted, Article 20 provides a further two-week route to mediation after service of the final rejection decision. These are statutory pathways, not a personal calendar: the notice, mediation record, court decision and service evidence must be read before any last date is stated.

Mandatory mediation is also a condition before actions for employee or employer receivables and compensation based on legislation or individual or collective labour agreements. Occupational-accident and occupational-disease compensation actions and related recourse actions are excluded from the mediation requirement in Article 3 of Act No. 7036. The mediator ordinarily concludes the assigned matter within three weeks, with one extension of no more than one week in compulsory circumstances. That administrative duration should not be confused with the employee’s initial application period.

If a court holds the termination invalid, Article 21 provides two different financial consequences. Wages and other rights can be ordered for up to four months for the period not worked pending the final judgment. If, after a proper application, the employee is not reinstated, the court sets compensation at no less than four and no more than eight months’ wages. These are statutory ranges and heads of relief, not a prediction for a particular employee. The pleaded case, judgment and post-judgment conduct control the result.

After service of the final reinstatement judgment, the employee has ten working days to apply to start work. Following a valid application, the employer has one month to reinstate or face the Article 21 consequences. A mediated agreement to reinstate must specify the start date, the relevant wage and rights amount and the compensation payable if reinstatement does not occur; otherwise the statute treats agreement as not reached. A multinational employer needs a local decision path that can act within those periods rather than wait for a remote committee meeting.

The employer’s dispute file should mirror the reason in the notice and preserve the documents on which that reason was based. It should contain the contract and amendments, role and organisation materials, selection analysis where relevant, approvals, notice and delivery proof, payroll calculations, mediation papers and records of any reinstatement application. Parallel public or internal communications should not contradict the legal file. Consistency improves credibility, but it cannot cure a reason that was unsupported when the decision was made.

6. Severance, notice, leave and releases need separate calculations

Statutory severance under the surviving Article 14 of former Labour Act No. 1475 depends on a qualifying termination category and at least one year of service. Resignation does not universally qualify. For a qualifying termination, the baseline is thirty days’ wage for each completed year, with proportional payment for additional service. The legal entitlement, service history and termination ground should be verified before an amount is entered in a settlement paper or board estimate.

The annual severance amount is subject to the statutory ceiling linked to the maximum retirement bonus for the highest civil servant. The Ministry publishes a ceiling for each relevant period. The archived research records the July to December 2026 value, but this article deliberately does not turn that figure into a reusable calculation. The ceiling must be checked against the employee’s actual termination date and checked again on publication day. Regular money and measurable benefits may enter the severance base; irregular or one-off items require legal and payroll classification.

Notice pay is a different entitlement. It is based on the applicable Article 17 notice period and the legally relevant wage and benefit base, and it has no severance-style ceiling. Accrued unused annual leave becomes payable on termination regardless of the termination ground. Payroll should calculate gross and net treatment through the rules current for the payment date and show severance, notice, leave, wages, bonus or commission issues and deductions separately. A single “termination package” number conceals errors and makes later reconciliation difficult.

An employee release concerning employer debts is tightly regulated by Article 420 of the Code of Obligations. It must be written, executed at least one month after termination, identify the type and amount of the receivable and satisfy the prescribed payment conditions. Full effectiveness requires full payment relative to the entitlement and payment through a bank. A document that does not evidence full payment may operate only as a receipt up to the amount paid, and the bank-payment condition remains relevant. A release signed on the termination day is not made effective by calling it a settlement.

Supplementary Article 3 of Act No. 4857 sets a five-year limitation period for specified termination-linked receivables, including annual-leave pay and named compensation claims. A settlement cannot guarantee that no later claim will be made; enforceability depends on statutory form, timing, payment and the actual dispute. The safer file records the calculation basis, explains disputed and undisputed sums, preserves payment proof and avoids any promise that the document eliminates every possible claim.

7. A workplace transfer is not a redundancy shortcut

On a legal transfer of a workplace or part of a workplace, existing employment contracts pass to the transferee with their rights and obligations. The transferee uses the employee’s original start date with the transferor for seniority-based rights. A transaction team should identify whether the legal event is a workplace transfer, a share transfer that leaves the employer unchanged, an asset transfer that does not carry an organised unit, or another structure. The label in the acquisition agreement cannot replace the employment-law analysis.

For pre-transfer debts that are due at transfer, transferor and transferee are jointly liable, with the transferor’s liability generally limited to two years. The statute contains an exception where legal personality ends through merger, participation or change of type. Due diligence should therefore trace unpaid wages and benefits, leave, litigation, collective arrangements, payroll records and service dates and then allocate contractual responsibility without assuming that contractual indemnities remove statutory exposure toward employees.

Transfer alone is not a valid termination reason for either employer and is not just cause for the employee. Article 6 nevertheless preserves terminations required by economic, technological or organisational reasons and separate immediate-termination rights, provided their own conditions are met. A buyer may restructure after completion, but the local file must show the operational reason, affected roles and procedure rather than state that ownership changed. A seller should not dismiss staff merely to deliver a workforce-free business if the contracts legally transfer.

Article 6’s workplace-transfer rules do not apply to a transfer resulting from liquidation of assets due to insolvency. Act No. 6356 also contains distinct rules for collective-agreement rights and obligations following workplace transfers. Insolvency, merger, asset sale, outsourcing and site relocation therefore need separate classification. The transaction timetable should include employment, union, SGK, data and notification workstreams before communications are released.

8. Union status and collective agreements can change the route

An employer may not differentiate in termination because of union membership, non-membership or protected union activities. Union-related termination claims have specific compensation and burden provisions under Act No. 6356 and cannot be reduced to the ordinary Article 18 analysis. A selection exercise should therefore be tested against membership and activity information only through a legally controlled process and for the purpose of detecting prohibited impact, with access restricted to those who need it.

Workplace union representatives receive additional protection. Under the specific rule in Act No. 6356, a representative cannot be transferred or have work substantially changed without written consent. Before changing a representative’s reporting line, location or duties as part of a reorganisation, identify the protected status and obtain advice on the applicable procedure. A general mobility clause or group policy should not be assumed to override the statutory protection.

The applicable collective labour agreement should be reviewed from the beginning. It may regulate selection, consultation, notice, benefits, disciplinary procedure, transfer, recall or enhanced severance. It can also define which workplace and employees are covered and what happens following a transfer. The implementation team should use the authentic current text, its term and any extension or succession rules, and should document engagement with the authorised union bodies.

Union consultation and Article 29 consultation should be mapped together without treating them as interchangeable. One may arise from statute, another from the collective agreement, and protected-representative rules can apply to individual measures. Minutes should accurately record proposals and responses without seeking a waiver of mandatory rights. The aim is a traceable local process that can be understood by employees, authorities and a court, not a global script translated at the last moment.

9. Employee data needs a controlled termination protocol

The employer may use employee personal data only to the extent related to suitability for work or necessary for performance of the employment contract under Article 419 of the Code of Obligations. A restructuring file can contain performance records, compensation, health-related absence, union status, disciplinary material, device data and litigation risk. Access should be role-based, data should be limited to the decision purpose, and retention and transfer should be justified rather than assumed under a broad group-HR mandate.

The KVKK Board’s Decision Summary No. 2021/205 treats the return of devices and closure of company email after termination as fact-specific processing. It is not blanket authority to inspect personal content. The offboarding protocol should separate company records from private material, record the lawful reason for access, preserve only relevant evidence and coordinate IT action with notice timing. If misconduct is investigated, preservation measures should be proportionate and should not silently expand into unrelated monitoring.

Consent is not a universal solution in employment. The Board’s Decision Summary No. 2020/404 recognises that consent may not be freely given where refusal creates adverse consequences in the unequal employer-employee relationship. The employer should identify the proper legal basis for each operation, provide the required information and avoid bundling an unnecessary data waiver into a release or redundancy offer. Cross-border access by a foreign parent also needs the separate transfer analysis applicable at the time.

Evidence preservation and data minimisation can coexist. Issue a targeted hold for organisation charts, approvals, assessment inputs, notices, delivery records, payroll and litigation documents while suspending deletion only for relevant custodians and systems. Record the knowledge date and source of misconduct allegations where Article 26 may apply. A controlled register allows the company to defend the decision without creating an unlimited archive of employee communications or distributing sensitive material through unsecured email.

10. SGK, İŞKUR and unemployment records must match the legal decision

The employer must notify SGK of the end of covered Article 4(1)(a) insurance within ten days. A workplace transfer may also trigger a workplace notification to SGK within ten days for the new employer. The team should check the current e-SGK workflow, competent registration and event-specific coding before filing. A timely portal entry is an operational obligation; it does not validate the underlying termination reason or determine the employee’s civil rights.

Unemployment benefit depends on the statutory termination category, contribution record, availability and timely employee application. Act No. 4447 generally refers to an application within thirty days after termination, with delay not caused by force majeure deducted from benefit duration. The employer should provide accurate records but should not promise that İŞKUR will grant a benefit. Eligibility is determined under the statute and the individual’s insured history, not by a sentence in a termination letter.

Consistency matters across the notice, payroll, SGK and İŞKUR records and any mediation or court file. A code indicating one reason while the written notice relies on another creates a contradiction that needs explanation. It can also affect the employee’s administrative process. Consistency reduces avoidable risk, but a chosen code cannot make an invalid reason valid, guarantee unemployment benefit or determine a court outcome. Review the complete set before submission, and preserve receipts and corrected filings where the official system permits them.

For an Article 29 project, keep proof of notifications to union representatives, the regional directorate and İŞKUR together with the current collective personnel form and consultation record. Assign an owner for each filing and a second-person check for identity, dates, numbers, employee groups and attachments. Portal availability or an uploaded form should not be treated as proof that all statutory recipients received the required content.

11. A multinational implementation plan that can operate locally

Create a responsibility matrix before names are selected. The Turkish employer should own the legal decision and authorised signature. Local HR should verify contracts, seniority, workplace counts and delivery. Finance and payroll should calculate separate entitlements. Labour relations should manage union and authority contact. IT and privacy teams should control access and offboarding. A dispute lead should impose the document hold and maintain the service calendar. The foreign parent can supply commercial evidence and approvals, but the plan must preserve the Turkish entity’s actual role.

The first decision paper should define the operational problem, proposed organisation, positions affected, alternatives considered and planned timing. The second layer should map job-security coverage, Article 29 thresholds, union or collective obligations and substantial-change proposals. Only after those gates should the team finalise individual selection and notices. This order makes it possible to identify redeployment, attrition, reduced hiring or other measures before treating dismissal as the only route, while keeping the record tied to genuine operational needs.

Use a controlled employee file for each outcome: contract and amendments; role history; applicable collective terms; selection material; approval; defence if conduct or performance is relied on; notice and delivery proof; notice arrangement; severance, leave and other calculations; SGK and İŞKUR records; device-return and data steps; and any mediation or court documents. The file should distinguish legal requirements from group policy. Translating key documents for the foreign parent is useful, but the authentic Turkish document and delivery evidence should remain authoritative.

Build the calendar from verified triggering documents. It may need to track the six-working-day and one-year Article 26 limits, six working days for an employee response to a substantial change, the Article 29 thirty-day notification period, the one-month mediation application, two-week reinstatement filing route, post-judgment ten-working-day application and one-month reinstatement response. These periods arise from different provisions. Do not place a personal last date on the calendar until the event, notice and service facts have been checked.

Finally, perform a publication-day and implementation-day currentness check. Reread the operative legislation, the severance ceiling for the employee’s termination date, current SGK and İŞKUR portal instructions, the applicable collective agreement and any served authority or court document. Confirm that the statutory headcount and timing rules have not changed. No general guide can promise a dismissal outcome, benefit award, settlement finality or absence of litigation. Its value is to show the questions and evidence that must be resolved before the Turkish employer acts.

12. Frequently asked questions and official sources

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

• Labour Act No. 4857 — official consolidated text
• Labour Courts Act No. 7036 — official consolidated text
• Former Labour Act No. 1475 — surviving severance-pay Article 14
• Trade Unions and Collective Labour Agreements Act No. 6356 — official consolidated text
• Turkish Code of Obligations No. 6098 — official consolidated text
• Unemployment Insurance Act No. 4447 — official consolidated text
• Social Insurance and Universal Health Insurance Act No. 5510 — official consolidated text
• Termination of employment contracts and termination-linked receivables — 2026 inspection handbook
• Labour Act frequently asked questions
• July–December 2026 severance-pay ceiling
• Employer social-security notification obligations
• Mandatory mediation frequently asked questions
• Personal Data Protection Board Decision Summary No. 2021/205 on termination data
• Personal Data Protection Board Decision Summary No. 2020/404 on employee data and consent
• İŞKUR employer portal surface for collective personnel notifications

This guide is a framework for organising a Turkish workforce-restructuring project. The employing entity, workplace, employees, reasons, contracts, collective arrangements, notices, payment data and current law must be reviewed for the particular matter.