DISK Chair Çerkezoğlu: Fund Crisis Creating Wave of Mass Unemployment

Arzu Çerkezoğlu, General Chair of Turkey's Revolutionary Workers' Unions Confederation (DISK), explained to Sözcü Newspaper the economic devastation of the fund crisis in which half a million people lost 830 billion lira. Çerkezoğlu stated that "unpaid debts and large-scale money withdrawn from the market negatively affected the general economic slowdown," and said that considering the slowdown observed since the third quarter of 2025, without creating a statistical miracle, the situation would become even worse.

Çerkezoğlu emphasized that contraction in some sectors has led to waves of mass unemployment and noted that news of bankruptcies and concordats is not lacking.

Labor Economics Expert Prof. Dr. Aziz Çelik also warned that possible use of public resources could emerge as a new resource problem for workers and retirees. Çelik noted that resources previously went to interest payments, and now such fund embezzlement is occurring, stating "this situation could emerge before retirees and workers tomorrow" and drawing attention to the possibility that resources could be depleted.

According to Sözcü's calculations, if 830 billion lira were distributed equally among 17 million retirees, it would amount to approximately 48,824 lira per person; if distributed among 7 million minimum wage earners, it would amount to 118,571 lira per person. When compared to the 50 billion lira breathing loan announced by TOBB, the same amount could have distributed a total of 16 breathing loans. According to Turkish-İş data from October 2024, 830 billion lira equals one month's subsistence threshold for 21.8 million families of four or one month's poverty threshold for 6.7 million families.