108 Ahmet İçduygu
In recent years, contract-dependent labour migration has constituted a
large part of Turkish emigration. In 2000, 13,645 workers obtained employ-
ment abroad through the Turkish Employment Organisation or TEO (see
Table 3.3). This f igure leapt to over 26,000 in 2002, 40,000 in 2004, and 81,000
in 2006; although there was a somewhat declining trend in these f igures in
the second half of the 2000s, there were still over 50,000 workers sent abroad
by the TEO in 2010. This migration was primarily a contract-dependent
labour migration, where workers are hired for a period of between 3 and 24
months by Turkish or foreign contracting f irms operating mainly in the CIS
and MENA countries. In 2000, over half (52 per cent) of these workers went
to the CIS and 18 per cent to MENA countries, 17 per cent to EU countries,
and 10 per cent to Israel. In that year the Russian Federation, Germany,
Turkmenistan, Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan were the top f ive receiving
countries of Turkish workers. In 2003, the top ranking was the Russian
Federation (31 per cent), Saudi Arabia (17 per cent), Germany (10 per cent),
Libya (7 per cent) and Turkmenistan (4 per cent). It appeared that, in 2004,
while one third of these migrants went to the Russian Federation, more
than 12 per cent moved to Iraq and 10 per cent to Kazakhstan. In 2005, the
top three destination countries were still the same: the Russian Federation
(32 per cent), Iraq (12 per cent) and Kazakhstan (9 per cent). In 2010, over 29
per cent of the workers went to Libya, 15 per cent to the Russian Federation,
11 per cent to Saudi Arabia and 10 per cent to Iraq.
3.2.4 The continuation of migration f lows and the formation of
migrant communities
As noted earlier, the suspension of organised labour immigration to Western
Europe in the mid-1970s did not curtail overall emigration from Turkey.
Europe remained a long-standing receiving area for an increasing number
of newcomers from Turkey, although there were new destination areas
attracting thousands of emigrants from the country. The number of Turkish
people residing in Europe continued to increase from 600,000 in 1972 to
almost 2 million in the early 1980s, and to 2.9 million by the mid-1990s. In
the mid-2000s, the total number was over 2.5 million. It should be noted here
that the decline in the total number of Turkish citizens abroad is mainly
due to the declining trends of emigration from Turkey in addition to these
citizens acquiring another citizenship.