Syrians in Turkey’s textile sector consider repatriation. Employers might follow them.
İSTANBUL — In a basement workshop in Küçükçekmece, a district on the western side of İstanbul, about 20 workers sit at sewing machines making low-cost clothing items. Most of them are young Syrian women and children between the ages of 14 to 17.
Among them is Zehra, 21, who came to Turkey with her family when she was 10 years old. Originally from Aleppo, she’s been working on textiles since she was 16. Her two younger brothers work in nearby footwear shops.
Together, they help support their family by working long shifts six days a week – often the norm in such workshops, which have relied on informal Syrian labor for more than a decade. Reflecting on her years in Turkey, Zehra said she has often faced anti-Syrian discrimination.
"We experience a lot of racism here. They don't like us,” she told Turkey recap. “We don't do anything to anyone. We just work and go home. But they still blame us for everything that’s bad.”
“Turks say, ‘Go away now, the rents have gone up because of you,’” Zehra added.
Since the fall of the Assad regime in December, she said the pressure to return to Syria has grown. While she would like to go back eventually, Zehra doubts living conditions will improve in the near-term, listing her concerns about access to water, food and electricity in Aleppo.
“When we return to Syria, we will be poor again, we will be workers, we will have difficult conditions,” she said. “Maybe there will be no hatred towards us, but right now our priority is security.”
Similar misgivings were echoed by other Syrian textile workers who recently spoke with Turkey recap. Many said they wanted to return, but not immediately. Their decisions will not only reshape their lives, but also Turkey’s textile industry, parts of which may relocate to Syria along with the workers.
As Syrians consider repatriation, business leaders in Turkey are debating what their departure might mean for the local textile industry, which employs hundreds of thousands of informal Syrian workers in hubs like Küçükçekmece.
Turkey’s Presidency of Migration Management (Göç İdaresi Başkanlığı) did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this report.
How workers see it
Every morning at 9 am, Yasin, a father of three, goes to a stitching workshop in a Küçükçekmece shoe factory. He returns home at 10 pm.
For years, he has kept this routine with determination to one day return to his hometown, Aleppo, which he left in 2013.
“We have been dreaming of returning since the day we came,” Yasin told Turkey recap. “We can’t return now because our houses have been destroyed. There are no doors, no windows. There is no work … We learned from our relatives in our hometown that there is only two hours of electricity a day.”
Yasin said he used to own a shoe workshop in Aleppo and plans to reopen one again when he goes back, which might be soon. He said some family members recently departed for Syria and would begin making preparations for the arrival of his family.
“If we can create a living space there again, we will return,” Yasin said. “But this is not possible with children in the wintertime. Many families like ours are waiting for the summer.”
As of Jan. 30, 2025, Turkey hosted about 2.86 million Syrian refugees under temporary protection status. The refugee population has fallen slightly since regime change in Syria, as Turkish Interior Min. Ali Yerlikaya announced that about 81,500 Syrians had returned between Dec. 9, 2024 and the end of January 2025.
Yet less clear statistics are available about the remaining Syrian workforce. Recent figures range widely, but the International Labor Organization estimated Turkey employed 1 million Syria workers in 2020, the vast majority informally – meaning without work permits, insurance or other benefits required of the formal labor market.
Many such unregistered Syrian workers are employed by workshops in Küçükçekmece. One of them is İsmet, who works six days a week, 14 hours a day for 20,000 liras a month – below Turkey’s current net minimum wage of 22,104 liras.
İsmet said he is ethnically Turkmen, but is often subjected to discrimination because of his Syrian nationality. This not only upsets him, but as a new father, the occasional negative encounters now make him worry about his family’s future.
“The other day, while I was on the bus, a Turk sitting next to me asked me where I was from,” İsmet said. “When I said I was Syrian, he said to my face, 'Get out of here now.' He said it to my face!”
“I am very angry about what we have experienced here,” İsmet told Turkey recap. “We want to go back to our country again, but it needs to get better. There are no job opportunities, we have no home, we have no savings. How will we live if we return with a baby?”
How employers see it
As refugee workers consider their options in a post-Assad Syria, some Turkish employers worry labor costs will rise due to contractions in the informal labor pool. This comes as news reports routinely feature workshop managers who say their workers left for Syria.
In an interview with Turkey recap, Kerem Ç., the owner of a textile workshop, said some factories were closing in his neighborhood due to Syrian departures and broader economic headwinds in Turkey’s textile industry.
“We heard that four to five workshops were closed in this area,” Kerem said.
He has been running a workshop in Küçükçekmece since the late 1990s and said he began employing majority-Syrian workers after 2012. Today, 17 out of 21 workers in his workshop are Syrian, he added.
“I think the situation of Syrians is good here,” Kerem told Turkey recap. “They don't work as cheap as they did when they first came. They work for the same wage as the Turks working here.”
“There are those who don’t have citizenship, or identity cards, so they prefer to work especially in informal workshops,” he added.
Kerem said that Syrian workers are employed for the minimum wage in insured businesses, but they work in uninsured businesses because they can earn more than minimum wage. This, he claimed, is because employers use the savings from unpaid insurance costs to pay wages.
“If I get insurance, I cannot earn. If I get insurance, I have to employ them for a lower wage. Then the Syrians will not work for those wages,” Kerem said.
Another factor in informal and uninsured employment is the limited distribution of official work permits to Syrians. According to the most up to date statistics from 2023, 108,520 Syrians held work permits that year.
Noting job prospects are limited in Syria, Kerem said none of his Syrian workers had yet to return to their country, though many were thinking about it.
“First, the fathers will go and see. They will stay for a while, they will look at the situation and if it is appropriate to return, they will return,” he said.
“If the Syrians leave, of course, we will not be able to find workers,” Kerem continued. “Turks do not work here because there is no insurance. If we get insurance, costs will increase and workshops will not be able to earn profits.”
How business leaders see it
Business leaders have stated similar concerns about the potential loss of informal labor though with caveats for new opportunities.
“Immigrants need to work and support their families … and the Turkish economy needs them to work. Moreover, this is the case in all sectors, although the degree of need may vary,” said Mahmut Asmalı, president of the Independent Industrialists and Businessmen's Association (MÜSİAD), in a recent statement.
Gürsel Baran, chair of the Ankara Chamber of Commerce (ATO), and Abdurrahman Baydemir, president of the TOBB Malatya Young Entrepreneurs Board, also shared apprehensions in a separate statement, warning:
“The possibility of Syrian workers returning to their countries after the collapse of the Assad regime will create large gaps in the areas where they are currently employed.”
On the other hand, Ahmet Öksüz, chair of the Istanbul Textile and Raw Materials Exporters' Association (İTHİB), told Anadolu Agency that there are significant opportunities for Turkish businesses in post-war Syria.
“They were working in many areas. Now that they have returned to their country, it will be in our best interest to establish some production facilities there,” Öksüz said, adding that production and labor costs would be lower in Syria.
To underline his point, he drew upon recent Turkish investments in Egypt for comparison.
“Why don't we go to Syria instead of Egypt?” Öksüz asked. “Syria is also very advantageous logistically due to its proximity to Turkey. If we can start production in labor-intensive sectors on the Syrian side, in the region close to Turkey, Turkey will turn this into an advantage.”
A tough call
For many Syrians in Turkey, weighing the benefits and risks of staying or going remains a deeply complicated matter. Zehra, the textile worker from above, maintains that the uncertainty of what’s to come in Syria has kept her in Turkey, for now.
“We do not want to return without knowing that it is truly safe,” she said. “Our life here is difficult, but we have neither a home nor jobs in Syria. What will we do if we return?”
She expanded her concerns to regional and political factors.
“The regime has changed there, but we do not know if Syria will be in turmoil again,” Zehra continued. “Israel came as soon as the regime fell. There may be other threats.”
She then expressed doubts about Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and the interim government’s ability to maintain peace in the nation through the transition process.
“HTS were also head-cutters. We don’t know if we will be safe when we go to our homeland,” Zehra said. “Maybe we’ll return, something will happen and we’ll die. At least we’re not dying here.”
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