Along with rising prosperity levels, technological advances and drops in prices resulting from so much competition in the market, the need for repairmen seems to be fading faster with each passing day.
Repair shops fixing everything from televisions and kitchen appliances to shoes that even just a few years ago could be found on nearly every neighborhood corner in Turkey are closing down one by one these days. Those who do remain open note that customers now choose to buy new electronic appliances rather than paying to fix their old ones. This is so much the case in fact that electronic repair work has become a sector of retirees looking for ways to fill their time. With screwdrivers, control pens and hammers in hand, these repair experts long for the old days, when their profession was much sought after. Now repairmen can barely make enough money to support their families, and generally try to move into other sectors to make a living.
İbrahim Akdağ, who fixes household appliances such as refrigerators and washing machines for a living in İstanbul’s Şirinevler district, notes that while his profession is generally one that does well during an economic crisis, this time around, things are not so hopeful. He explains: “People who are having economic troubles used to prefer to have their electronic possessions fixed when they broke, rather than going out to buy a new one. That’s why our work always used to increase during times of crisis. But in this crisis, people still seem to prefer to buy new goods rather than fixing their old ones when they break.”
‘Cheap Chinese shoes finish our work’
İsmail Boran is a shoe repairman who worked for 20 years making shoes until he opened up his own repair shop. He was forced to switch his location about five years ago, when he could no longer afford the rent payments. Now Boran continues to repair shoes for a living, but in a very tight space underneath some stairs. He explains that the entrance of cheap Chinese shoes onto the market in Turkey basically finished off his profession. “When these cheap shoes made their appearance, our work dropped by about half. When people buy shoes for TL 10, they really don’t feel the need to repair them; they just spend a little bit more and actually get a new pair,” Boran says. He adds that he has no apprentices working with him and no one to teach his profession to, and so he thinks the day will probably come when he will simply have to abandon this job altogether.
Bahadır Tunceli, the head of the İstanbul Chamber of Radio, Gramophone, Tape and Television Repairmen, notes that in recent years his organization has seen a steep drop in membership. While there used to be 4,041 registered members, the number has since dropped to 1,053. And of these, many are members in name only: Some have not even come to the chambers’ office for 30 years or so. Over the past eight years, 923 people have dropped their memberships. “There are even those who no longer know what the word ‘pikap’ (gramophone) in our title means anymore. In fact, the repairing of radios and gramophones is a dead trade,” Tunceli said.
Nevertheless, the chamber is holding courses to try and encourage its members to keep up with the changing technology all around them. But there is a problem with demand. Though the courses have been on offer since 2005, the required minimum participation level of 10 people has never been reached, and thus the courses have always been cancelled. “Most recently, we sent our members a written notification about this course this month. But since then only five applications have come in from our 1,053 members for courses on antennas, alarm-security systems, the Windows operating system and audio-visual systems. We were forced to cancel these courses,” Tunceli said.
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