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The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of earthquakes on the labor market. The authors try to estimate the impact of two major earthquakes (Izmir and Elazig) in Turkey.

In order to analyze the effects of devastating earthquakes in the nearby regions of the province where the earthquake took place, on the labor market, monthly and annual data from the TUIK and ISKUR database will be used. For this purpose, the authors consider the earthquake a natural experiment and employ a Synthetic Control Method (SCM). In addition, the analysis will be carried out using seasonally adjusted data, taking into account the seasonal effects of the monthly data to be used in the study.

The results show that the impact varies based on the labor market structure of the regions. While the earthquake positively affects the labor market of agriculture-oriented regions, it harms the labor market of nonagricultural-oriented regions.

A major limitation of the study is that we cannot fully separate the impact of Covid-19 from our estimate. The authors believe that Covid-19 overestimates the negative impact of earthquakes on the labor market.

Earthquakes have adverse effects on the labor market. The estimation of the earthquake-related costs may provide a useful guide on policy planning and government incentives.

The originality of the study lies in the fact that this is the first study to evaluate how the dynamics of the labor market has changed as a result of the earthquakes that have taken place in Turkey, within the framework of causality.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-08-2022-0568

The world has witnessed three major individual revolutions until now. We are in the fourth industrial revolution, and there are technological breakthroughs that have not been seen before. Responding fast to changing consumer expectations in a competitive climate brought on by globalization has become a global reality, requiring enterprises to alter their manufacturing systems. The incorporation of machines that can interact and make decisions into production has altered the manufacturing processes. The application of the Industry 4.0 revolution to manufacturing processes has paved the way for the development of smart factories. Production may be made 24 hours a day in these factories where productivity grows with applications such as the internet of things (IoT), cyber-physical systems, augmented reality and artificial intelligence. All applications utilized in smart factories boost productivity and reduce costs and human error rates. Countries should undergo change in order to adapt to the competitive climate established by Industry 4.0, in which the entire world lives. Many industrialized countries have taken significant strides in this direction, including this process into their national policies. Turkey's ability to adapt to Industry 4.0 technologies in a digitalized competitive environment, as well as swiftly grow smart factory applications in altering production processes, is critical to its global economic standing.