Last update - 00:00 19/08/2007
Study: One in every five ministry employees is subcontracted
By Ruth Sinai, Haaretz Correspondent
At least 20 percent of all workers in government ministries are employed through outside contractors or special contracts and are not considered state employees. This is at least double the proportion in European countries.
The above information is included in a report by the Central Bureau of Statistics, which was commissioned by MK Shelly Yachimovich (Labor) for the Knesset. According to the report, the percentage of employees in each ministry who are not state employees ranges from 8 percent to 35 percent, and the arrangement is often a longstanding one. For example, 75 percent of the computer personnel in the Education Ministry have worked there for over five years, as have all 54 outsourced employees at the Industry, Trade and Labor Ministry.
The report is based on figures provided by 10 of the 17 ministries to which researcher Michal Tabibian-Mizrahi turned to for information. Her request came after it was discovered that the Civil Service Commission (CSS) had no information on the number of such employees, the terms of their employment or the costs associated with their employment, despite a cabinet resolution passed 10 years ago requiring every ministry to report this information to the CSS every six months.
Despite the fact that the original argument for adopting these hiring methods was economic, "our research has shown that no governmental body has conducted a comprehensive study of the economic efficiency of outsourcing personnel acquisition," the report states.
The Foreign Ministry, as well as the ministries of defense, environmental protection, agriculture and science, culture and sport either ignored the requests for information or refused to comply, while the ministries of tourism and transportation promised to submit figures but did not do so before the report was drafted last month. Some of the ministries admitted that the data they supplied were incomplete, while others issued inconclusive responses. The Health Ministry, for example, wrote it employed "many" advisers. The authors of the report believe that some of the ministries purposely concealed the extent of their outsourcing, while others did not have all of the relevant data collected in a single place.
The Social Affairs Ministry was the only one to submit information about the external employees in its ranks in an organized manner: 809 such workers, representing 22.5 percent of the ministry's workforce. These figures include caregivers, counselors, social workers, psychologists, etc. but not custodial workers or security guards. It also includes youth officers and senior-center supervisors, who by law must be state employees.
At 35 percent out of a total of 1,145 workers, the Construction and Housing Ministry had the highest proportion of external employees. Most of these are security guards at public offices in East Jerusalem. About 31 percent of Interior Ministry workers are employed via contractors, including 600 external advisers whose tasks include external auditing of local authorities.