More Greeks are emigrating to Turkey for jobs

Because of the severe economic crisis at home, many Greeks are considering emigration but many traditional emigration destinations like United States, Germany, France and United Kingdom are not doing any better. On the other hand neighboring Turkey is growing around 10% every year and seems it is not effected a lot from the European economic crisis yet. And more and more of Greeks are deciding to leave for Turkey. Greek pilots are finding business opportunities in booming Turkish Airlines while academics are taking positions at Turkish universities.

Greek pilot Takis Lagopoulos is one of these new immigrants in Istanbul. has lost his job when Greek Olympic Airways bankrupted, he turned to Turkey for his next job. Booming economy is not the only reason. The way of thinking is very similar in both countries so adaptation to Turkey is much easier. It is also only 1 hour flight away from home. Actually, his hometown is probably nearer to Istanbul than a lot of his Turkish colleagues’. 30 Greek pilots work in Turkish Airlines.

More and more foreigners are heading to Istanbul to look for a job. And more and more of them are Greeks. “Turkey is a rising market with 70+ million population” says Turkish-Greek Business Council Chairman Selim Egeli. “Skilled and well educated Greeks will not have any problem to find a job or start up a new company in Turkey. Turkey’s jobless rate, although high, is far below the Euro-zone average, and is not trending up at the moment.”



Dimitris Triantaphyllou is a Greek teaching in Turkey’s English language Kadir Has University. “A Greek teaching international relations in a Turkish university and running a research center was unthinkable just a decade ago” says Mr. Triantaphyllou “but thinks have changed.”
It is really great to see that the old, stupid and completely artificial hostility between Turkey and Greece fading away. In the past, largely thanks to both countries’ brain washing education systems, people on the opposite sites of beautiful Aegean Sea were in a mini-cold war although they have much more common way of life. Traditional indoctrination against Greeks have been irreversably damaged during the massive 1999 Izmit earthquake when many Turks watched large number of Greek rescuers working in collapsed buildings days and nights looking for survivors:

“Both the official response and dialog and the reactions of the ordinary Greek were given wide coverage almost every day in every newspaper and on every TV channel in Turkey. Incidents such as people bringing in food donations to municipalities in Greece and blood drives in Greece specifically to be sent to earthquake victims in Turkey were highlighted. The emotional language in reporting differed significantly from the usual rhetoric found in both countries—words such as “neighbor”, “true friend” were given in the headlines.”
Source :  Greek–Turkish earthquake diplomacy

It is not only the individual job hunters coming to Turkey. Greek businesses are also looking at their larger neighbour for business opportunities. “Numerious Greek firms for example in the IT Industry, have been investing in Turkey since the crisis started” says Selim Egeli. “While the consumption in Greece has plumped, it is increasing in Turkey”.

So far the number of Greek emigrants to Turkey is estimated to be only several thousands.