‘Less than half’ of north’s workforce are Cypriots

Less than half of the north’s workforce are Cypriots, independent Turkish Cypriot ‘MP’ Aysegul Baybars said on Monday night.

Addressing the Turkish Cypriot legislature as it debated the north’s ‘labour ministry’s’ budget, she lamented “very serious problems in working life” in the north.

“The population and working life in this country have transformed into a multinational structure. Fifty-two per cent of the workforce in our country is foreign. Our labour force participation rate is 50 per cent. The existing policies to protect the local workforce are insufficient,” she said.

To this end, she said there are “serious problems” in terms of the offers of vocational training offered to Turkish Cypriots, and that “steps must be taken to reduce the need for foreign labour” in the north.

She also said that “the informal economy should not be rewarded with an amnesty in 2026”, with the north having offered over 6,000 irregular migrants amnesty and thus allowed them to continue living and working in the north after arriving undocumented.

Undocumented migrants in the north, including those fined for having lived there illegally on or after January 1, 2021, were able to register and be incorporated into the north’s system with a work permit if they could find a job during the months of August and September last year.

Baybars on Monday night also said that while “steps have been taken towards supporting female entrepreneurs” by the Turkish Cypriot authorities, other shortcomings regarding female participation in the labour market “have not yet been addressed”.

As such, she suggested that the ‘labour ministry’ next year “focus on childcare and part-time flexible work arrangements”.

Her comments come as questions continue to be raised regarding the number of people who live in the north, with many believing that its population is actually much larger than the ruling coalition’s official estimates.

‘Prime minister’ Unal Ustel said earlier in the year that the north’s population is 590,000, excluding foreign students and Turkish soldiers.

However, others, including ruling coalition part DP ‘MP’ Serhat Akpinar and Turkish Cypriot mukhtars’ association chairman Akay Darbaz, have stated that as many as a million people may now live in the north, with Akpinar telling the Cyprus Mail that the north “must limit and stop” its handing out of ‘citizenships’ to stem its rapid population growth.

Meanwhile, local officials have complained that the rapid growth in population numbers has left local authorities with inadequate funds to provide services to residents.

Turkish Cypriot Nicosia mayor Mehmet Harmanci, for example, had said that half of the official population of the capital’s northern sector are now university students.

“Within the borders of the Nicosia Turkish Municipality [LTB], there are 40,000 university students, which is half of the official population of our municipality and a third of our unofficial population,” he said in November 2023.

Turkish Cypriot Kyrenia mayor Murat Senkul, meanwhile, said his town’s population may be as high as 150,000, and called on the ruling coalition to be “serious” about population growth.

He said the Turkish Cypriot Kyrenia municipality receives contributions from the ruling coalition based on a population of 47,000 people, and that this lack of funding causes financial problems.