‘More than half’ of north Cyprus’s workforce are foreigners

More than half of north Cyprus’s workforce are foreigners, the TRNC member of parliament Aysegul Baybars said on Monday night. 

Addressing the TRNC parliament as it debated the country’s ‘labour ministry’s’ budget, she lamented “very serious problems in working life” in north Cyprus.

“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 north Cyprus.

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

Illegal migrants in north Cyprus, including those fined for living illegally on or after January 1, 2021, were able to register and be incorporated into north Cyprus’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 TRNC 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 north Cyprus, with many believing that its population is actually much larger than the government’s official estimates.

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

However, others, including government partner party DP ‘MP’ Serhat Akpinar and TRNC mukhtars’ association chairman Akay Darbaz, have stated that as many as a million people may now live in north Cyprus, with Akpinar saying the country “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.

Lefkosia mayor Mehmet Harmanci, for example, had said that half of the official population of Lefkosa are now university students.

“Within the borders of the Lefkosia 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.

Kyrenia mayor Murat Senkul, meanwhile, said Girne's population may be as high as 150,000, and called on the government to be “serious” about population growth.

He said 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.