Minister of Labor and Social Security Vedat Işıkhan assessed the process of extending maternity leave to up to 24 weeks following the amendment to the Social Services Law.
In a statement at the Parliament, Minister Işıkhan said that both application-based and automatic extension procedures under the law are ongoing.
Automatically extended reports
Işıkhan reported that 32,214 maternity leave reports for insured individuals under status 4A, 1,711 for those under 4B, and 13,435 for those under 4C were automatically extended. Thus, a total of 47,360 maternity leave reports across the three insurance statuses were extended by the system without any additional action.
Extension through application
The Minister stated that as of July 27, there were 46,918 insured individuals who could apply for maternity leave report extension. He noted that 20,349 insured individuals completed their applications and all applications were finalized.
Işıkhan said, "The report generation processes for all applicants have been finalized. Thus, 43 percent of mothers who could extend their maternity leave reports upon request decided to extend their reports."
He added that with both automatically extended leaves and those extended through applications, a total of 67,709 mothers extended their maternity leave reports and used their leave up to 24 weeks.