The duty to employ disabled workers: how a hotel counts its 3 percent

Article 30 of Labour Law No. 4857 requires private-sector employers with 50 or more workers to employ disabled workers equal to 3 percent of the workforce, in jobs suited to their occupation and condition. Fixed-term and part-time staff count, part-time as full-time equivalents; fractions below one half are dropped, one half or more rounded up.

In May the seasonal contracts are signed and the payroll passes fifty. In November the same resort is at forty, and the question changes shape: was the disabled employment quota in Türkiye owed in July, and who can prove the count either way? This article works through the duty as written in Article 30 of Labour Law No. 4857: the threshold, the arithmetic, the province rule, recruitment through İŞKUR, the premium support, and the file that holds it all together. After reading, you will be able to build the monthly count sheet that answers the question before anyone else asks it.

What does the disabled employment quota actually require of a hotel?#

Article 30 of Labour Law No. 4857 obliges private-sector employers with 50 or more workers to employ disabled workers equal to 3 percent of the workforce, in jobs suited to the worker's occupation and physical and mental condition. The threshold is 50 workers in a private-sector workplace. The rate is 3 percent for the private sector; the law sets 4 percent disabled workers plus 2 percent ex-convicts for public workplaces. The consolidated text is published by the Presidency's Legislation Information System (mevzuat.gov.tr, 2026).

The obligation is not a headcount target in the abstract. The law asks for jobs suited to the worker's occupation and to their physical and mental condition, so the placement has to fit real tasks in your hotel, not just a number on a report. Employers recruit these workers through the Turkish Employment Agency (İŞKUR), which is the channel the law names, not a suggestion. A worker who becomes disabled while employed at the workplace has priority for the quota places.

Fines collected under Article 101 for breaches of the article are used for projects for disabled people and ex-convicts, such as helping them set up their own businesses or find and adapt to work. This article describes the duty in general terms; confirm dates, penalty amounts and your own case with an accountant or legal adviser.

The law sets a threshold, a percentage and a recruitment channel; it does not choose the job, the shift or the workplace adjustment. Those are management decisions, and they are where most of the work sits.

How is the 3 percent counted when the payroll is not a round number?#

Count the workforce, convert part-time staff to full-time equivalents, take 3 percent, then round: a fraction below one half is dropped and one half or more is rounded up. Workers on fixed-term and indefinite contracts both count, so a seasonal contract counts while it runs and stops counting when it ends. Part-time workers are converted to full-time equivalents according to their working time before the percentage is applied, which stops a hotel from inflating its base with short shifts.

The rounding rule is the part most often missed: 1.5 becomes 2, while 2.1 stays at 2. The law's wording ties the part-time conversion to calculating the percentage, so ask your adviser to confirm how the 50-worker threshold itself is read against your payroll before you rely on a single figure.

Keep the arithmetic on one sheet: total workers, full-time equivalents, 3 percent, the rounded obligation, the workers currently employed under the quota, and the gap. Recalculate when the count moves, not once a year, because a hotel payroll changes with every contract start and end.

Worked arithmetic, clearly illustrative#

These are hypothetical figures showing the rounding rule only, not a legal opinion. Note that at exactly 50 workers the obligation is already 2, because one half is rounded up.

Does a seasonal hotel owe the quota only in the months it passes fifty?#

The count is a live figure that rises and falls with the season, so the obligation has to be managed month by month rather than settled once for the year. A resort that runs 70 workers in July and 40 in January is over the threshold for part of the year; treating the annual average as the answer hides the months that matter. Fixed-term contracts count while they run, which is exactly the period when the hotel is busiest and furthest above 50.

The assessment period is a question for your adviser, so the safe control is a monthly headcount and full-time-equivalent sheet that shows the count every month, plus a written note from your adviser on how the period applies to you. Plan the quota before the season, not in August: an İŞKUR job request placed in spring has a chance of being filled by the time the count rises.

Season-end paperwork matters as much as season-start paperwork. Contracts, social security entry records and exit records together are what prove the count if it is questioned, and the exit codes a hotel reports at season end carry their own rules, as covered in SGK exit codes at season end. If you are still building the seasonal contract file, start with hiring seasonal staff: contracts, social security entry and the end of the season.

A hotel that is under 50 in the low season and over 50 in the high season cannot point to the quiet month as its position. Build the monthly count first, then decide the placement plan with your adviser. Do not describe the quota as suspended in winter; describe the count as moving, and show the sheet that tracks it.

We run several hotels in one province: is the count combined?#

Yes. An employer with more than one workplace in the same province calculates the number on its total workforce in that province. The unit is the province, not the country: two properties in Muğla are counted together, while a Muğla property and an İstanbul property are not.

This cuts both ways. A 30-person boutique can sit inside a provincial total above 50 without ever crossing the threshold on its own. The law speaks of the employer; whether affiliated companies under separate legal employers form one employer for this purpose is a question for your adviser, and this article will not assume either answer.

Practically, keep one quota pool per province and record which property carries the placement, so two hotels do not both claim the same worker or both assume the other has filled the quota. Put the provincial total on the same monthly sheet as the single-hotel count, with the workplaces listed underneath.

The province is the counting boundary. Write the province at the top of the sheet, list every workplace in it, and total the workforce before applying 3 percent.

How does a hotel recruit through İŞKUR, and which jobs fit?#

Employers recruit these workers through İŞKUR, and the placement works when the job request describes the real tasks, shift and physical demands before anyone is matched to it. Write the job request around tasks, not a job title: what is lifted, how long a shift runs, whether the workstation is seated, which routes the person walks. The law's own phrase is a job suited to the worker's occupation and condition, and the match is individual, so no general rule promises that any job suits any person.

For example, illustrative placements in a hotel might include linen room sorting and folding, breakfast mise en place, reservations and back-office data entry, switchboard cover, storeroom receiving, and laundry feeding. Most adjustments are scheduling and layout rather than new roles: a fixed shift instead of a rotating one, a seated station, a step-free route from the staff entrance to the post, written task lists, a stated lifting limit.

Keep the İŞKUR request and the correspondence; they show the recruitment channel was used if the quota is ever reviewed. Guest accessibility is a separate duty with its own rules, covered in the accessible hotel checklist for guests with disabilities; do not merge it into the employment quota.

What premium support does the employer get for these workers?#

The Treasury pays the whole employer share of the insurance premium calculated on the lower limit of earnings subject to premium, for disabled insured workers employed under the quota, and the support has conditions attached. The same support applies to each disabled worker employed above the quota, to disabled insured workers in sheltered workplaces under Article 14 of Law No. 5378, and to disabled workers employed by employers who are not obliged to employ them at all.

The conditions are procedural. The monthly premium and service documents must be filed with SGK on time, the worker share of all insured workers' premiums must be paid, and the employer share not covered by the Treasury must be paid. Late-payment surcharges caused by the employer's late payment are collected from the employer, so a slow month in payroll can cost more than the support is worth. Amounts paid by the Treasury are not counted as an expense or cost for income and corporate tax, which changes how the benefit appears in the accounts.

Because the support is calculated on the lower earnings limit rather than the actual wage, it is a fixed ceiling per worker, not a percentage of payroll; model it that way when you look at cost per occupied room, alongside the wider measures in hotel labor cost: payroll per occupied room and hours per room. Confirm current limits, forms and filing dates with your accountant or payroll adviser, since the figures are revalued.

Put the three conditions on one line in the payroll calendar: documents filed on time, worker shares paid, uncovered employer share paid. The support is lost by administration, not by eligibility.

What should the hotel keep on file?#

Keep the count, the recruitment channel and the payment record together, because each one answers a different question and none of them proves the others. The core of the file is the monthly headcount and full-time-equivalent sheet, per workplace and per province, with the 3 percent and the rounded obligation written next to it.

Alongside it, keep the İŞKUR job request and the correspondence that followed it, the employment contracts including fixed-term seasonal ones, and the social security entry and exit records. Add the placement record naming which workplace in the province carries the quota, and the adviser's written note on the assessment period and rounding used. Premium and service documents belong with payment receipts, since the support depends on on-time filing and payment.

Health or disability reports should sit in a separate, limited file. This is special-category personal data under Türkiye's personal data protection law (KVKK), so restrict who can open it and keep it out of the general personnel file. Finish the year with a short review note recording what changed in the workforce and what the hotel did about the quota.

What to do next#

Build one monthly sheet for the last twelve months: every workplace in the province, total workers, full-time equivalents, 3 percent, the rounded obligation and the gap. Take that sheet, the seasonal contracts and the İŞKUR request to your accountant or legal adviser and settle the assessment period and the placement plan before the next season starts. The quota is arithmetic plus paperwork; the arithmetic is easy, and the paperwork is what hotels lose.