Exodus from Turkey to the southeast after the earthquake threatens production

Susana Vera and Jayda Caglayan

ANTAKYA/ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Mehmet Alkan, a shoe sole maker in Turkey’s earthquake-hit south, is unsure what will become of his company after some of its 220 employees are killed and half fled, reflecting the industry’s difficult transformation ahead. in the region.

Forty of his workers and several families took refuge for some time in the intact Alkan-Taban factory in Antakya after the strong earthquakes on 6 February.

“We only had 110 workers left after some died and others left the city, so production capacity dropped,” said Alkan, a manager.

The deadliest disaster in Turkey’s modern history has hit a region rich in textiles and agriculture, which accounts for 16% of total employment and about 11% of industrial output, the Istanbul Chamber of Industry said in a report.

This forced millions of people to leave the 11 southeastern provinces, which were home to about 14 million people. Some say they may not return despite Ankara’s plan to quickly rebuild hundreds of thousands of damaged or destroyed buildings.

Interviews show that hundreds of businesses that reopened a month after the quake face a shortage of staff who have moved to nearby villages, to stay with relatives in other cities, or to state-sponsored accommodation in tents and container houses.

“We have turned our showroom into a dormitory” for employees, Alkan said. “Most of their families have left the city or moved to safer rural areas. They are scared. We are waiting for others to return.”

He said the company’s shuttle used to travel up to 50 km (30 miles) to pick up workers from their homes, but now it travels twice as far to reach villages.

The disaster, which has claimed the lives of more than 52,000 people in Turkey and Syria, is a challenge to President Tayyip Erdogan’s plan to turn Turkey into a competitive manufacturing power. Business groups and economists estimate that the impact of the earthquake cost about $100 billion and reduced the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) by one to two percentage points.

Some of the funds meant to boost production, employment and exports under Erdogan’s economic plan will go towards aid and reconstruction efforts in the area, they say.

REPLACEMENT

To mitigate the impact, the government introduced part-time benefits for workers and eased access to credit for affected companies.

In Antakya, the worst-hit city where dozens of neighborhoods were demolished, only about a third of production capacity is being used a month after the quake, sector officials and experts say. It could take years to return to normal, resulting in a shift in demographics in the area.

“We need urgent government support to start business return migration. We are losing skilled labor. It is necessary to create a safe environment with facilities such as schools and social spaces,” said Hikmet Chinchin, head of the Antakya Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

More than 600,000 homes in the region have collapsed or been severely damaged, according to official figures, and the government has pledged to build at least 250,000 housing units within one year.

“It is very difficult to predict when housing and business in the region will return to normal. Permanent housing and reopened schools will be critical,” said Serdar Sayan, director of the Center for Social Policy Research (SPM) at TOBB Ankara University. .

The region could also experience a reshuffling of industries as workers from the construction sector arrive, Sayan said.

“People who have started a new permanent life in other cities are mostly in the middle and high income class,” while those who have stayed tend to have lower incomes and need government assistance, Sayan said.

Seher Ichichi, who worked in logistics and accounting for a textile machinery company in Kahramanmaras, near the epicenter of the earthquake, moved about 250 km west with her two young children to the city of Mersin.

“We are staying temporarily, as we currently do not have a home to return to. We had to leave the city as we couldn’t find temporary accommodation,” Ichichi said.

Families she knew have already left the area and enrolled their children in other schools, she said, and most of them won’t be back until at least the end of the school year.

“Now I can’t work, but I was lucky because my boss paid me a salary and some support money,” Ichichi said. “We’re dealing with this for now.”

(Additional reporting by Ezgi Erkoyun; editing by Jonathan Spicer, Daren Butler and Nick McPhee)

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