06.01.2026 16:01
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan spoke at the "Youth Employment Initiative-Power Promotion Program" at the Beştepe National Congress and Culture Center. Erdoğan stated, "We will provide each young person participating in the program with a daily pocket money of 1,375 lira, and we will also cover the premiums for occupational accidents, occupational diseases, and general health insurance through İŞKUR as the state. With the cooperation program with the private sector, we will cover the salaries of our young people aged 18-25 for the first 6 months after they start working."
President Erdoğan attended the "Youth Employment Initiative-Power Promotion Program" at the Beştepe National Congress and Culture Center.
Starting his speech by greeting the participants, Erdoğan expressed his pleasure in hosting young people at the Presidential Complex, which he described as the "home of the nation." In his address to the youth, Erdoğan emphasized the importance of labor, stating that some values always retain their worth by resisting the passage of time and technological developments.
Stating that the fundamental condition for progress in fields such as science, technology, culture, and art is "labor," Erdoğan said, "There are some values that never lose their importance, regardless of what date the calendar shows or what the spirit of the time is. Without these values, you cannot carry yesterday into today and today into tomorrow. Labor is one of these values. Undoubtedly, in many cultures, labor is seen as the key to success. However, in our belief and civilization, labor not only brings success but also leads to mercy and abundance."
In his speech, President Erdoğan recalled the lines of the national poet Mehmet Akif Ersoy, which highlight the importance of work: "The community needs to awaken, it does not wake up with hidden tears / Working is the only way, how can it be with lives and heads." Stating that success is the fruit of effort, Erdoğan said, "Mercy is the result of effort. Remember; our proverb 'There is no mercy without effort' is another expression of this truth that has been passed down through the ages."
"WE HAVE IMPLEMENTED A SYSTEM THAT WE LOOK TO THE FUTURE WITH CONFIDENCE" President Erdoğan continued as follows;
"Since the day we took over the trust of the nation, we have acted with great sensitivity, especially in giving labor the value it deserves. Just as in many other areas, we have established the relationship between workers and employers from the perspective of fairness. Thank God, we have implemented a system where no one is victimized, and everyone looks to the future with confidence, from shopkeepers to farmers, from civil servants to workers, from entrepreneurs to exporters.
We have both grown the Turkish economy, which we have raised on four pillars of production, employment, investment, and export, and made it resilient to shocks. We have built a system with the support of our nation, where all segments of society benefit maximally from prosperity and stability, and no one is left behind. We have continued economic development alongside social development. We have approached the system as a whole. We have designed our permanent employment-focused efforts to benefit every stakeholder in the economy. In doing so, we have also implemented incentive and support packages with methods that directly involve our youth in the system.
"WE ARE WALKING TOWARDS OUR ECONOMIC GOALS TOGETHER WITH OUR YOUTH" Turkey's development marathon, which has been ongoing for 23 years, continues with full speed. I see once again today that while the marginal circles led by the opposition point the streets to the youth of this country, we are walking towards our economic goals together with our youth. Despite those who try to escape by stepping on the shoulders of the youth whose feelings they manipulate with the mud of bribery and corruption they are stuck in, we cherish our youth and support them.
As a government, we are striving to do our best to provide a better future for our youth. Because we have concerns. We have dreams about this country. We have a vision of a Great and Strong Turkey. For this, we are mobilizing our resources in politics, education, bureaucracy, business life, civil society, and many other areas. We value benefiting from the knowledge, dynamism, and abilities of our youth, whom we always believe in their visions. At the same time, we continue to take steps to bridge the gap between education and employment and to repair the shortcomings of the system. The Youth Production Age: POWER Program, which we will share the details of shortly, is one of these initiatives.
"WE WILL PROVIDE NEW SUPPORTS TO OUR YOUTH AND EMPLOYERS" With the Youth Production Age Program, which covers five main support areas, we aim to establish a system where each of our youth can develop their talents, transfer their abilities to the labor market, and feel the presence of their state as they start their professional lives. With the POWER Program, we will offer new supports to our youth and employers across a wide range, from internship opportunities to skill acquisition, from vocational guidance to wage support, and to innovative models for youth who are not included in education and employment.
With this project we have implemented, we are redefining and reshaping the role of the state in youth employment. We are taking the first step with internship supports within the scope of our POWER Program. With internship supports, we aim to facilitate our youth's introduction to the labor market while continuing their education and to ease post-graduation employment. As you know, through the internship portal under İŞKUR, our children can access suitable internship opportunities, and our businesses can publish job postings. Now we are taking this system to the next level. We have transferred the National Internship Program to İŞKUR and integrated it with the existing internship portal. Similarly, we will meticulously implement the obligation to employ interns in public and private sector enterprises with more than 10 employees.
"WE ARE STARTING TO ACCEPT INTERNSHIP APPLICATIONS" We are introducing a requirement for businesses benefiting from active labor programs to hire at least 10% interns.We will continue to support the wage and premium costs of our youth during their internship period. We will be by the side of our youth by providing career counseling services to facilitate workplace and intern matching. We have allocated a total budget of 27 billion lira for our internship supports for the next 3 years. In addition to the current internship capacity, we will, God willing, provide support for the internship processes of an additional 800,000 young people over the next 3 years. We are starting to accept internship applications through İŞKUR as of today. I wish all our youth good luck and success in advance.
One of the most efficient resources of Turkey's production capacity is, as I have always stated, our educational infrastructure. However, unfortunately, our education system was severely damaged due to the unjust policies of the February 28 period. With the grotesque practice known as the coefficient system, the paths of our vocational high school youth were blocked for years, preventing them from receiving education in the universities of their choice. We put an end to this injustice; we made vocational high schools attractive centers again for our children. Our youth who graduate from vocational education institutions now have a significant advantage in the labor market. These young people hold a privileged place in working life with what the old saying refers to as a "golden bracelet" on their arms. The term "intermediate staff," which was frequently used for them in the past, has now been replaced by the term "desired employee" in the business world.
"WE ARE IMPLEMENTING 'THE APPLICATION OF THE FUTURE PROFESSION'" This transformation is very important in terms of demonstrating the place of vocational education in production processes. It is essential that we correctly guide our youth studying in vocational high schools and vocational colleges, enabling them to be included in different sectors even before they receive their diplomas. In this way, we can increase the youth employment rate and meet the qualified workforce needed by our industry and service sector much more quickly. For this purpose, we are implementing 'The Application of the Future Profession' within the scope of the power program. Within the framework of this application, we have established a strong cooperation between our Higher Education Council, the Ministry of National Education, and the Ministry of Labor. We have transferred the information of our students in the final year of vocational and technical high schools to the İŞKUR system.
We will soon include the information of our students continuing their education in the final year of vocational colleges in the İŞKUR database as well. We will assign a 'Career and Vocational Counselor' to each student who will closely monitor them. We will guide our students, especially in the defense industry, in harmony with their families and counselors, and bring them together with our employers in different sectors. In this way, we will connect approximately 250,000 final-year vocational high school and vocational college students with career and vocational counselors each year; by the end of 3 years, we will prepare a total of 750,000 young people for working life.
"OUR YOUTH SHOULD BE EMPLOYED IN JOBS SUITABLE FOR THEIR QUALIFICATIONS" I must express with great pride: In recent years, there has been a significant decrease in the rate of our youth who are neither in education nor employment. This is undoubtedly a valuable achievement, but we must make this achievement permanent. Sometimes they say, 'young people are picky about jobs.' We see that such generalizations that do injustice to our youth are being made. Beyond that, we witness that our youth are targeted with hurtful expressions like 'home youth.' We have never accepted and will not accept any approach that pushes the bright faces of this country into a passive position, disregarding their potential. Just as we protect the rights of our employers, we need to listen to the demands of our youth with great sensitivity. Employers have a critical responsibility at this point. They must employ our youth, who are preparing to take their first step into working life, in jobs suitable for their qualifications; we are obliged to provide fair wages, opportunities for development, and predictable working conditions. When these conditions are met, we can see much more clearly how the participation of young people in employment increases.
"WE ARE LAUNCHING THE NYOP PROGRAM" We are determined to integrate each of our youth, who will play important roles in the future of Turkey, into the needed fields. We are launching the NYOP program, our third support module, for this purpose. With this program, our youth will acquire new skills and gain practical experience by taking on roles in different areas. We will provide each young person participating in the program with a daily allowance of 1,375 lira. We will also cover the premiums for work accidents, occupational diseases, and general health insurance through İŞKUR as the state. In this way, we will provide training to 150,000 young people each year for the next 3 years, totaling 450,000 young people by the end of the 3 years. With this program, for which we have allocated 108 billion lira, we will reintegrate the youth who have been left out of education and employment into the production process.
I would also like to draw your attention to another important issue. When we look at the data from our Social Security Institution; we see that approximately 1.5 million people entered the labor market for the first time as insured or by starting their own business during the period from July 2024 to June 2025. While 58% of those who are insured for the first time are in the 18-29 age range, nearly half of those who start their own business are young people. What is noteworthy here is that a significant portion, 42%, of the first job entry age is 30 and above. This table is important in terms of showing that both participation in working life and the processes of starting a family have significantly prolonged and delayed.
"WE WILL COVER THE FIRST 6 MONTHS' SALARIES OF YOUNG PEOPLE" The fourth program we have implemented to shorten these periods is the 'First Step' program. With this program, designed in collaboration with the private sector, we will cover the first 6 months' salaries of our youth aged 18-25 after they start working. Similarly, we will also pay all insurance premiums for up to 6 months by starting their first insurance. Moreover, we will not impose any employment guarantee conditions on our employers in return for this. With the support we provide, in cases where our employers provide additional employment, the first job entry will no longer be a cost item; it will be a secure start for our youth for 6 months.In the same way, we will also eliminate the prejudice of 'young people are inexperienced' in practice. We will also benefit our small-scale tradesmen who have at least one employee from the project. With a budget of 216 billion lira that we foresee for this program, we aim to benefit 750 thousand of our young people over 3 years, with 250 thousand people each year.
DAILY ALLOWANCE RAISED TO 1375 LIRA The fifth and final leg of our power move is the 'İşkur Youth' program. The İşkur Youth program, which we launched last year, has received great interest and appreciation from our young people. The number of our students who earn income by working 1 to 3 days a week has reached 150 thousand in a year. Now we are further expanding and strengthening this project. We are raising the daily pocket money from 1,083 lira to 1,375 lira. Thus, we are increasing the income of each young person who works 3 days a week within the İşkur Youth program from 15,000 lira to 19,000 lira per month. I wish our young people all the best.
445 BILLION LIRA WILL BE ALLOCATED TO THE PROGRAM In the next 3 years, we will allocate a massive resource of 445 billion lira that will employ more than 3 million of our young people to this program. With the power program, our students will gain qualified work experience at an early age. Our young people studying in vocational high schools will be directed to the workforce through healthy and reliable channels even before they graduate. Young people who are outside of education and employment will be reintegrated into the system. The first work experience of our university graduates will no longer be a risk. Our young people who continue their higher education will be better prepared for the future while studying and producing. I wish all the best for our young people, our students, and of course our employers.
We will continue to work for our young people, who are the most important actors of the Century of Turkey; to provide our children with the best, highest, and most quality opportunities in both their work and educational lives, God willing. "