Termination of Employment Due to Military Service

Article 14 of the former Labor Law No. 1475, which governs severance pay and remains in force pursuant to Article 120 of Labor Law No. 4857, expressly provides that an employee who leaves employment for compulsory military service is entitled to severance pay. This is one of the exceptional cases where an employee who terminates the contract on their own initiative still qualifies; as a rule, an employee who resigns is not entitled to severance pay, but termination on grounds of military service is specifically listed in the law.

The general requirement of at least one year of employment with the same employer also applies to termination on grounds of military service. An employee who has not completed one year of service does not acquire a right to severance pay by leaving for military duty.

A precondition for claiming severance pay on this ground is that the employee actually documents that they are being called up for service. This requires submitting the call-up document obtained from the relevant military registration office to the employer, together with a written notice of termination. In practice, delivering this notice through a notary or against a signed receipt helps avoid disputes over proof later on.

The interval between the termination and the call-up date also matters. Court of Cassation decisions have treated terminations made unusually early relative to the call-up date as raising questions about whether military service was the genuine motive, whereas notices given closer to the call-up date generally leave no such doubt. What counts as a reasonable interval in a given case depends on the specific facts and the court's assessment.

Notice pay is compensation owed by the party who terminates an employment contract without just cause and without observing the required notice period; the terminating party itself cannot claim notice pay. Since the employee is the one who terminates the contract when leaving for military service, they are not entitled to notice pay, even though they are entitled to severance pay.

In practice, this means an employee called up for service may terminate the contract immediately upon presenting the call-up document, without giving the employer advance notice. Likewise, the employer cannot claim notice pay from the employee in this type of termination.

Severance pay in this type of termination follows the same rules as any other severance pay calculation. For each full year of employment, an amount equal to 30 days' pay based on the employee's last gross wage is used, with partial years calculated on a pro-rata basis.

• The calculation is based on the employee's gross "dressed" wage, meaning recurring benefits such as travel, meal, and bonus payments are added to the base wage.
• A statutory severance pay ceiling applies each year; no compensation is paid for the portion of the calculation that exceeds this ceiling.
• Separate periods of employment with the same employer may be combined for calculation purposes, provided no severance-terminating payment was made between them.

Since the items included in the calculation and the applicable ceiling change over time, current figures and the wage components specific to a given file need to be assessed on a case-by-case basis.

An employer who receives the call-up document and termination notice must first pay the accrued severance pay within the statutory period. The employer must also issue the employee's certificate of employment, file the termination notification with the Social Security Institution, and settle any other outstanding entitlements, such as unused annual leave pay.

Failure by the employer to meet these obligations gives the employee grounds to pursue mediation or litigation. For most claims arising from labor law, applying to mediation before filing a lawsuit is a statutory precondition.

A commonly held but inaccurate belief is that an employee is guaranteed to be reinstated in their former job upon completing military service. In fact, the "reinstatement lawsuit" available under job security provisions is a separate legal remedy that applies where an employer has carried out an invalid termination, and it does not apply to an employee who has voluntarily terminated the contract for military service, since there is no employer-initiated termination to invalidate in that case.

Article 31 of Labor Law No. 4857 instead grants a limited, conditional right to be rehired to employees who leave their jobs for a legal duty such as military service: an employee who applies to the employer within two months of completing service must be hired immediately if a vacancy exists in the same or a similar position, or given priority for the next such vacancy if none currently exists. If the employer fails to meet this obligation despite these conditions being satisfied, the employee may be entitled to compensation equal to three months' wages.

This provision therefore does not amount to an automatic, unconditional "right to get the old job back" — the employer's obligation to hire depends on a suitable vacancy being available and the employee applying within the statutory period. Whether these conditions are met in a particular case needs to be assessed on the specific facts of the file.

For general information on other employment claims and termination procedures beyond military service, see our İzmir employment lawyer page. Support in labor law matters is provided primarily in Karabağlar, as well as Konak, Buca, and Balçova.

Av. Mehmet Yücesoy

İzmir Attorney & Legal Consultancy