Part-Time and Temporary Employment in Turkey: Legal Framework and Common Disputes

Introduction

Part-time and temporary employment in Turkey are lawful, but they are not legally casual arrangements. Turkish labor law recognizes several flexible work models, yet each of them is governed by its own statutory structure. The main framework comes from Labor Law No. 4857, especially Article 7 on temporary employment relationships and Article 13 on part-time work, together with the equal-treatment rule in Article 5, the written-form and information rules in Article 8, and the mediation regime in Labor Courts Law No. 7036. The Ministry of Labour’s 2026 handbook on core labor concepts also confirms that the Labor Law allows parties to organize employment in different forms, including part-time work, subject to statutory limits.

This topic matters because employers often use the language of “part-time,” “temporary,” “project-based,” or “agency worker” as if these terms were interchangeable. Under Turkish law, they are not. A part-time employment contract is not the same thing as a temporary employment relationship. A worker supplied through a licensed private employment agency is not in the same legal position as a worker on a direct part-time contract. And a contract that is called temporary in everyday business language may still create indefinite-term employment consequences if the legal structure is not respected.

For employees, the issue is equally important. Flexible work models do not place a worker outside labor protection. Turkish law expressly states that part-time workers may not be treated less favorably than comparable full-time workers merely because of part-time status unless there is a justified reason, and that temporary agency workers must not receive basic working conditions lower than those that would apply if they had been hired directly by the user employer for the same job. In other words, non-standard employment is still protected employment.

This article explains Part-Time and Temporary Employment in Turkey: Legal Framework and Common Disputes in a practical, SEO-friendly format. It focuses on the legal definition of part-time work, proportional rights, parental part-time work, temporary employment through private employment agencies and intra-group transfers, time limits, headcount caps, equal-treatment duties, written-form requirements, reclassification risks, and the main dispute patterns that arise when these models are used incorrectly.

1. The legal basis of part-time and temporary employment in Turkey

Turkish labor law allows parties to choose different contract types and work models, but only within the boundaries of the statute. Article 9 of Labor Law No. 4857 states that, subject to the limitations imposed by the law, the parties may organize the employment contract in a form suitable to their needs, and that contracts may be fixed-term or indefinite-term and, in terms of working pattern, may be full-time, part-time, trial-period, or another lawful type. This is the broad legal opening for flexible work models.

But once the parties move from general freedom into a specific model, the statute becomes more demanding. Article 13 regulates part-time work directly. Article 7 regulates temporary employment relationships, either through a licensed private employment agency or by temporary transfer within a holding or group company. The same law also ties equal treatment, written disclosure of conditions, and dismissal protections into this framework. As a result, legal compliance depends not on what the parties call the arrangement, but on whether the arrangement actually fits the article governing it.

2. What is part-time work under Turkish law?

The statutory starting point is Article 13, which states that where the worker’s normal weekly working time is set significantly lower than that of a comparable full-time worker, the contract is a part-time employment contract. The Labor Law uses the phrase “significantly lower,” and the Regulation on Working Time under the Labor Law makes the rule more concrete by stating that work performed up to two-thirds of the comparable full-time work is considered part-time work. The Ministry’s older official “50 Questions on Working Time” handbook gives the same explanation and illustrates it with examples such as 30 hours or less where the comparable full-time schedule is 45 hours per week.

This definition matters because part-time work in Turkey is not simply “any schedule shorter than someone else’s.” The comparison must be made against a comparable full-time worker doing the same or similar work. Article 13 states that the comparable worker is the worker in the same workplace employed in the same or similar job under a full-time contract, and if there is no such worker in the workplace, the comparison is made with a suitable worker in the same line of business. This comparison mechanism is central in disputes about whether the work was really part-time at all.

In practice, one of the most common disputes is that the contract is labeled part-time but the worker’s real schedule looks close to full-time. Turkish law’s definition gives employees a legal basis to challenge this kind of mismatch. If the actual pattern of work exceeds the legal understanding of part-time work, the employer may face disputes about wages, social-security reporting, equal treatment, and even contract misclassification. That conclusion follows directly from the statutory structure of Article 13 and the working-time regulation.

3. Equal-treatment protection for part-time workers

One of the clearest protections in Turkish labor law is that a part-time worker cannot be treated as a lower-status worker merely because of the contract type. Article 13 states that, unless there is a reason justifying the distinction, a part-time employee may not be treated differently from a comparable full-time employee solely because the contract is part-time. The article also states that divisible wage-related benefits must be paid proportionately to working time. Article 5 reinforces that logic at a more general level by stating that, unless there are essential reasons, the employer may not treat a part-time worker less favorably than a comparable full-time worker.

This means Turkish law accepts proportionality, but not arbitrary inequality. A part-time worker may lawfully receive wages and divisible monetary benefits in proportion to time worked, but that does not mean the employer can deny every benefit automatically. The legal question is whether the benefit is divisible and whether a legitimate reason exists for the difference. Where the employer simply relies on the part-time label without legal justification, the equal-treatment rules become relevant.

This is also where many common disputes begin. Employees often complain that part-time status was used to exclude them from workplace benefits, while employers often assume proportional treatment gives unlimited freedom to reduce or remove benefits. Turkish law does not support either extreme. It protects proportionality, but it also requires a justified and comparable treatment structure.

4. Requests to move between part-time and full-time work

Article 13 also regulates mobility between work patterns. It states that, where a suitable vacancy exists, the employer should take into account workers’ requests to move from part-time to full-time or from full-time to part-time, and vacant positions should be announced in time. This is not an absolute right to demand conversion in every case, but it does impose a legal expectation of structured consideration rather than arbitrary silence.

That rule matters because part-time work in Turkey is not meant to trap the employee permanently in a reduced-hours status. It also shows that the law treats working-time structure as a real employment condition rather than a purely managerial convenience. In practice, disputes may arise where employers repeatedly recruit outsiders for suitable full-time roles while ignoring internal part-time workers who requested transition. The statutory text gives those employees a basis to question that practice.

5. Parental part-time work as a special right

Turkish labor law also contains a very specific part-time work right for parents. The additional paragraph in Article 13 states that, after the end of the leaves provided under Article 74, one parent may request part-time work until the month following the date the child reaches compulsory primary-school age. The article further states that this request must be met by the employer and cannot be treated as a valid reason for termination. It also provides that the worker may later return to full-time work for the same child only once and that the worker must notify the employer in writing at least one month in advance. The Ministry’s FAQ repeats the same rules.

This is one of the most important special forms of part-time work in the Turkish system because the employer’s discretion is much narrower here than in ordinary contract negotiations. In this area, part-time work is not just a business arrangement; it is a statutory family-related right. That is why disputes around parental part-time work often become dismissal disputes or equal-treatment disputes if the employer refuses the request or reacts negatively to it.

6. Social security calculation in part-time work

Part-time work also creates practical social-security issues. The Ministry’s official “50 Questions on Working Time” handbook states that, where part-time work is calculated by hours, the monthly worked time is generally divided by 7.5 hours, which is treated as the general daily working time, and the resulting figure is used for SGK premium-day reporting, with fractions rounded up. While this handbook is explanatory rather than the law text itself, it reflects the official administrative understanding of how hourly part-time work is translated into premium days in practice.

This is a common source of disputes because part-time workers often assume their social-security day count will mirror calendar days, while employers may under-document actual working time. Since part-time employment usually involves reduced premium-day reporting, accurate time records become especially important. The working-time regulation separately requires the employer to document employees’ working time with suitable tools, which reinforces the evidentiary importance of proper records in part-time employment.

7. What is a temporary employment relationship in Turkey?

A temporary employment relationship under Turkish law is regulated mainly by Article 7 of Labor Law No. 4857. The article states that such a relationship may be established either through a private employment agency or by temporary assignment within a holding or another workplace belonging to the same group of companies. This is an important distinction: Turkish law does not treat every short-term labor need as an informal temporary placement. The relationship must fit one of the legal models in Article 7.

For private-agency supply, the law is even more specific. Article 7 states that the relationship is formed when a private employment agency licensed by the Turkish Employment Agency (İŞKUR) signs a temporary worker supply agreement with an employer and temporarily transfers one of its workers to that employer. İŞKUR’s official English application page confirms that private employment agencies may establish temporary employment relationships only if they are authorized by the Turkish Employment Agency under Law No. 4904 and the relevant regulation.

This means temporary employment in Turkey is not simply a matter of borrowing labor informally. If the arrangement is built through a private agency, the agency must be legally authorized. If the arrangement is intra-group, the special conditions of Article 7 must be observed. Otherwise, the parties risk stepping outside the temporary employment framework altogether.

8. When can temporary agency work be used?

Article 7 limits private-agency temporary work to certain situations. These include substitution in the cases mentioned in Article 13 paragraph 5 and Article 74, military service, and other situations where the worker’s contract is suspended; seasonal agricultural work; domestic services; work that is not part of the enterprise’s ordinary daily operations and is performed intermittently; urgent work required by occupational health and safety or compelling reasons that significantly affect production; unforeseen and significant temporary increases in the average production capacity of goods or services; and seasonal increases in business volume other than classic seasonal work.

These categories matter because they show that Turkish law does not allow temporary agency work as a completely open substitute for ordinary hiring. The employer must be able to place the arrangement within one of the statutory situations. If it cannot, the use of temporary agency labor becomes legally vulnerable. Common disputes often arise precisely here: whether the work was really intermittent, really urgent, really unforeseeably increased, or simply part of the employer’s ordinary continuing business. That dispute pattern is a direct consequence of Article 7’s limited-permission structure.

9. Time limits and renewal limits in temporary agency work

Article 7 also regulates duration. It states that temporary worker supply may continue for as long as the underlying substitute-type situations continue, may be established without a time limit in seasonal agricultural work and domestic services, and in the other listed cases may last for at most four months. The law further states that, except for the periodic increase case in paragraph (g), the contract may be renewed at most twice and may not exceed a total of eight months, and after the period ends the user employer may not employ a new temporary worker for the same job until six months have passed.

These time limits are one of the main control mechanisms against abuse. Turkish law allows temporary staffing, but it does not allow employers to keep reusing agency labor indefinitely for the same ordinary need. In practical terms, one of the most common disputes in temporary employment is whether the statutory duration and renewal rules were exceeded and whether the arrangement was being used as a disguised long-term labor model.

10. Prohibitions, caps, and restrictions on temporary agency work

The law places further restrictions on temporary agency work. Article 7 states that this route cannot be used in workplaces where collective dismissals have taken place under Article 29 for eight months, cannot be used in public institutions and organizations, and cannot be used in underground mining workplaces for the private-agency cases covered by the article. It also states that temporary workers may not be employed during a strike or lockout, subject to the special rule in the collective labor law framework.

There is also a numerical cap. For the “unforeseen increase in capacity” case under Article 7 paragraph (f), the number of temporary workers may not exceed one quarter of the workforce at the workplace, though workplaces employing ten or fewer workers may establish temporary employment for up to five workers. The article also states that part-time employees are converted into full-time equivalents for this headcount calculation.

These rules often generate common disputes because they require employers to do more than sign an agency contract. They must check whether the workplace is eligible, whether the reason fits the law, whether a strike or recent collective dismissal blocks the model, and whether the workforce cap is respected. The more temporary agency work becomes a structural staffing tool, the more these legal controls matter.

11. Rights and duties in temporary agency work

Article 7 states that, in a temporary employment relationship established through a private employment agency, the employer is the private employment agency. At the same time, the user employer has significant responsibilities. It has the authority to give instructions to the temporary worker in line with the work and the supply contract, must notify open positions, must report work accidents and occupational diseases, must treat temporary workers equally in access to workplace social services during the period they work there, and must provide occupational health and safety training and measures under the relevant OHS rule. The article also states that the temporary worker’s basic working conditions during the period of work may not be lower than the conditions that would apply if the worker had been directly employed by the user employer for the same job.

This is a very important point for employees. Even though the agency remains the formal employer, the worker does not lose protection at the user workplace. For employers, it means temporary agency work does not eliminate responsibility. The user employer cannot simply point to the agency and ignore workplace equality, OHS, or accident-reporting duties. Turkish law deliberately distributes obligations between the agency and the user employer.

The same article also contains wage-protection rules. In the “unforeseen capacity increase” case, the user employer must check monthly whether wages of temporary workers employed for more than one month have been paid, and the agency must present documents showing payment. If wages have not been paid, the user employer may withhold the agency’s receivable and pay up to three months of unpaid wages directly into the workers’ bank accounts, while reporting the unpaid amounts to the provincial labor and employment directorate. That is a strong statutory signal that Turkish law treats wage protection in temporary agency work as a real compliance duty.

12. Written contracts and automatic indefinite employment risk

Temporary agency work must also be established in writing. Article 7 states that the temporary employment relationship through a private employment agency is established by a written employment contract with the temporary worker and a written temporary worker supply agreement between the agency and the user employer. The law also requires the supply agreement to include at least the beginning and end dates, the nature of the work, the agency’s service fee, and any special obligations of the parties.

One of the most significant reclassification risks appears if the relationship continues after the agreed end date. Article 7 states that if the temporary employment relationship continues despite expiry of the contractual term, an indefinite-term employment contract is deemed established between the temporary worker and the user employer from the end date of the contract. In that case, the agency remains responsible for wages arising from the temporary employment relationship, the duty of care, and social security premiums, but only for the period of the contractual term. This is one of the strongest legal consequences in the Turkish temporary-employment regime.

This rule is at the center of many likely disputes. A user employer may treat a temporary worker as if the agency relationship can continue informally beyond the written term, but Turkish law turns that factual continuation into an indefinite direct employment relationship. That is a major reason why careful contract management is essential in temporary staffing models.

13. Temporary transfer within a holding or group company

Article 7 also allows a different temporary employment model: temporary transfer of an employee, with the employee’s written consent, within a holding or to another workplace belonging to the same group of companies. The law states that this relationship may be established in writing for up to six months and may be renewed at most twice. It also states that the original employer’s wage-payment duty continues and that the receiving employer is jointly liable with the transferor employer for unpaid wages arising during the period of work, the duty of care, and social security premiums.

This is not the same as agency work. The original employer does not disappear, and the group-company structure matters. In practice, disputes often arise where employers treat group-company movement as administratively easy but fail to document written consent or ignore the time limits and joint-liability structure. Turkish law allows flexibility within group structures, but it still insists on consent, writing, and responsibility allocation.

14. Common disputes in part-time employment

Common disputes in part-time employment typically cluster around four areas. The first is misclassification: the contract is labeled part-time, but the actual working pattern looks close to full-time. The second is unequal treatment, especially exclusion from benefits without a justified reason. The third is social-security underreporting, where recorded premium days do not reflect the real working pattern. The fourth is refusal or mishandling of statutory parental part-time work requests under Article 13. These dispute patterns are a direct outgrowth of Article 13, Article 5, the working-time regulation, and the Ministry’s official guidance.

Another recurring issue is that employers sometimes try to use part-time work while still expecting availability similar to full-time work. Turkish law does not prevent flexible scheduling, but it does require that the nature of the work pattern remain legally honest. Once the worker is effectively performing full-time functions or being managed as full-time in practice, the legal and evidentiary basis for the part-time label becomes weaker.

15. Common disputes in temporary employment

In temporary employment, disputes typically arise around whether the arrangement was lawful from the start and whether it stayed lawful over time. Key recurring issues include use of temporary agency work outside the situations listed in Article 7, exceeding duration or renewal limits, breaching workforce caps, using agency labor after collective dismissals or during prohibited periods, failing to maintain the worker’s basic conditions at the required level, failing to pay wages correctly, and allowing the relationship to continue after the contractual end date. All of these risk points are visible directly in the text of Article 7.

Another major dispute area is identifying the responsible employer. Turkish law deliberately splits responsibilities between the agency, the user employer, and, in group-company transfers, the transferor and receiving employer. Because of that, temporary employment disputes often involve not only the worker’s rights, but also which entity is responsible for wages, OHS duties, accident reporting, or the legal consequences of continuation beyond the written term.

16. Mediation and litigation

Where disputes arise out of part-time or temporary employment, the ordinary labor-procedure rule generally applies. Article 3 of Labor Courts Law No. 7036 states that, in lawsuits concerning employee or employer receivables and compensation arising from law or individual or collective employment contracts, and in reinstatement claims, prior application to a mediator is a condition of action. If mediation is not attempted, the case is dismissed procedurally.

This means that disputes over unpaid proportional benefits, wage differences, misclassification consequences, invalid dismissal after a part-time request, or reclassification-linked claims arising from misuse of temporary employment will usually need to pass through mandatory mediation before labor-court litigation. The substantive issue may concern part-time or temporary work, but the procedural front door remains the mediation system under Law No. 7036.

Conclusion

Part-time and temporary employment in Turkey are legitimate legal models, but they are tightly regulated. Part-time work is defined by comparison with a full-time worker and is protected by proportionality and equal-treatment rules. Temporary employment relationships are allowed only through the specific channels recognized by Article 7, especially licensed private employment agencies or written intra-group transfers, and only within the statutory conditions, time limits, and responsibility rules. None of these models removes the worker from ordinary labor protection.

For employers, the key lesson is that flexible work models should be built on the correct legal category from the beginning. Calling a worker “part-time” or “temporary” is not enough. The arrangement must match the Labor Law, the working-time rules, the equal-treatment principle, and, where agency work is involved, the licensing and duration regime. For employees, the key lesson is that non-standard work still comes with enforceable rights. In Turkish labor practice, the most serious disputes do not arise because the law prohibits flexibility. They arise because flexibility is used without respecting the legal framework that makes it lawful.