Working hours, productivity and wages in Turkey

Productivity, which shows the relationship between inputs such as labor, capital, land used in production and output obtained is extremely important both in terms of competitiveness of firms and in terms of economic growth. As an important input, the productivity of the workforce depends mainly on its level of education, experience, the sector in which it works, its complementarity relationship with machinery and technology. In addition, working hours and real wages also have significant impacts on labour productivity. But high working times lead to physical and psychological problems for the employee, leading to a conflict between the home-family, family-work. The aim of this study is investigate the thesis that productivity is not high at the same rate in Turkey, where high working times exist and therefore real wages remain low. In this context, weekly and annual working hours, hourly minimum wage and annual minimum wage rates and real Gross Domestic Product's per working hour rate, labour productivity data rates among Turkey and the OECD countries were evaluated. The findings obtained as a result of the research support the thesis of the study. Turkey is in a spiral of long working hours, low productivity and low wages. This study offers solutions on how to increase labor productivity, which is the main problem of the thesis.