Last update - 00:00 15/02/2007
Employment Service: Israelis can replace all foreign workers
By Ruth Sinai, Haaretz Correspondent
Nearly 200,000 Israelis are currently registered as unemployed with National Employment Service, and could potentially replace foreign workers in construction, agriculture, industry, restaurants, and care for the elderly, the service's Director General Esther Dominisini told the Knesset Committee on Foreign Workers on Thursday.
According to Dominisini, some of the unemployed Israelis are already trained for the sectors in which foreign workers are employed, while others my require training but are healthy and fit for work.
Dominisini has formulated a plan to gradually replace some of the roughly 85,000 foreign workers currently legally employed in Israel, based on government decision to gradually phase foreign workers out of the construction and industry sectors by 2010. Roughly 15,000 foreign workers are currently employed in those sectors.
The government has also decided to reduce the number of permits issued to foreign workers in agriculture and care for the elderly.
Dominisini believes that should the government invest NIS 100 million over three years in training programs, travel subsidies, scholarships and grants, the number of foreign workers in all sectors can be significantly reduced and replaced with unemployed Israelis, especially those who are relatively uneducated.
The government's plan is being put to the test in Eilat, where hotels will be prohibited from employing foreign workers as of March 1.
There are currently 500 foreign workers legally employed in Eilat hotels, but hotel managers say that it would take 1,500 Israelis to replace the foreigners because each foreigner does the work of three Israelis.
In recent months, hotel managers and employment services have held dozens of employment fairs throughout the country. Despite this, hotel managers say that few Israeli candidates that are both able and willing to work in the hotel industry have been found.
An Isrotel employment fair held in Jerusalem on Thursday attracted over 100 employment seekers from the Jerusalem area, Ramle and Modi'in, including Ethipian immigrants, Arabs from East Jerusalem, and single mothers. Most of the jobs being offered were menial ones, such as housekeeping, dishwashing, and cleaning.
At least half of the job seekers at the fair were eligible candidates for employment.
"It has been proven that, given appropriate employment conditions and suitable salaries, there are enough Israelis willing and able to replace the foreign workers," said the chairman of the Knesset Committee on Foreign Workers, MK Ran Cohen (Meretz).
"In Eilat they have realized that there is no choice, and that's why we have excellent cooperation from hoteliers that are willing to employ Israelis," said Dominisini, adding that "the continued employment of foreign workers not only deepens the unemployment, it also delays the industrialization of the construction industry and the mechanization in agriculture, increases the stipends paid to the unemployed, harms the Israeli worker's ability to negotiate his salary, and encourages an environment of corruption."