Turkey: 105,000 expats issued work permits since 2016

Reporting by Alper Atalay; Writing by Emin Avundukluoglu

ANKARA

Turkey's Ministry of Labor and Social Security has issued work permits to 104,915 foreigners since 2016, it said on Tuesday.

The ministry's International Labor Force Department shared a report on labor force statistics for foreigners.

According to the data, Istanbul province tops the list with 38,837 foreigners who have been issued work permits.

Kocaeli province, with 622 work permits, is at the bottom of the list.

Meanwhile, Turkey has given work permits to 39,935 Syrians since 2016.

There are 4.5 million migrants in Turkey, 3.5 million of them Syrians.

Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since 2011 when the Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests with unexpected ferocity.

Since then, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in the conflict, according to UN figures.