ABSTRACT

This article analyses the approaches of social actors of the textile-apparel industry towards the employment of Syrian refugees in Turkey. While mainly evaluating the perceptions of Turkish supplier manufacturers towards the programmes and projects of transnational apparel-textile corporations sourcing from Turkey, the article will also touch upon the approaches of trade unions, NGOs and bureaucrats. The article will briefly summarise the debates of the literature on the employment of refugees within the global supply chain and explain the relation, competition and cooperation between the informal and formal economies. The analysis of the article is based on the in-depth interviews with representatives of the social actors and observations conducted during various projects and events. The article demonstrates that theese approaches of the social parties of the industry has a significant obstacle on the legal employment of Syrian refugees. Although all parties recognise that the informal employment of refugees is a crucial problem for the industry, there is no much effort to resolve this problem. An important reason of this is the existing contradictions among the social actors based on the supply chain management.