Inauguration event of the new training center of the National Histadrut and Amit for the foreign construction workers/National Histadrut
The war destroyed the cards in the construction industry.
The Chinese burned the bridges.
Moldova also stopped sending us workers out of fear.
6,000 foreign workers out of 22,000 who were in Israel on the evening of the seventh of October fled back to their country.
And this, as we know, when about 100,000 Palestinian construction workers are under a security blockade until further notice;
The result is that many construction sites remain closed or operate at 50% of their capacity, due to a significant shortage of working hands.
Despite the critical situation in the construction industry, the response at first was slow and cumbersome and full of bureaucratic barriers, when only today, almost six months into the war and the crisis in the industry, the rate of arrival of foreign workers is increasing.
So far, only a few thousand have arrived in Israel, most of them from India, and a few from Sri Lanka.
It shouldn't be like this.
Unfortunately, different voices and those with interests claim with a committee that the manpower corporations in the construction industry are the ones that burden the process of recruiting employees, but the picture is completely different.
The manpower corporations, who made tremendous efforts at the beginning of the war and successfully led an outline for the return of foreign workers who worked in Israel for over 5 years, and the return of workers who fled the war, know how to bring 50 thousand workers here within a month and a half to two months from now, as was the case in the 90s and early 2000s.
What is needed is just to loosen the shackles of bureaucracy and let us do what we know.
Inauguration event of the new training center of the National Histadrut and Amit for the foreign construction workers/National Histadrut
Inauguration event of the new training center of the National Histadrut and Amit for the foreign construction workers/National Histadrut
History, gentlemen: the analysis of the situation
over many years, even before the time of Moshe Kahlon as Minister of Finance and until the Bennett government, the quota of foreign workers in the construction industry stood at 15 thousand, which is a drop in the ocean compared to the approximately 100 thousand Palestinian workers.
Despite all the statements and attempts to explain to the decision makers in the government the problematic nature of relying on the Palestinian workers, and the fact that it is impossible to surpass them in terms of wages, until the Bennett government no one wanted to hear about increasing the quota of foreign workers.
Minister Kahlon did put real estate at the top of his priorities, but he missed the main thing that should have been done, which was to bring in foreign workers endlessly so that there would be an alternative to the Palestinian workers.
Kahlon's government did open up the possibility of bringing foreign construction companies here, but they were very functionality, did not arrive in large quantities and did not promote the goal for which they came - construction with advanced technologies and a mass of workers. The foreign construction companies brought with them about 6,000 workers in total, and thus we found ourselves with 20,000 workers throughout the period, compared to about 100,000 Palestinians as mentioned . A terrible imbalance. Even then there were contractors who preferred to work with foreign workers rather than Palestinians, one of the reasons is that they were more suited to certain construction methods. Due to the low quota of foreign workers, the demand for them was higher than the supply and the price for the foreign worker rose, which also affected the price The apartment is for the consumer.
A few years later, during the Bennett-Shaked-Lieberman period, the foreign worker quota increased to 30,000, but the Population and Immigration Authority was unable to recruit enough workers to fulfill the quota. The average was between 18,000 and 22,000 Arab foreign workers The war. The other mistake was - they put all the eggs on China. Thus, a Chinese monopoly of foreign workers in the construction industry was created here, plus a few Moldavian workers, who came in small quantities.
Then comes the war
as I said before, the war changes everything.
Our warnings about the Palestinians came true, and a day after October 7th we find ourselves with 16,000 foreign workers instead of 22,000, zero Palestinian workers out of about 100,000, and a few thousand workers with blue ID cards.
In a short time and with impressive work, as mentioned, the corporations managed to return the number of foreign workers in the construction industry to 22 thousand and even recruit 2,000 additional workers who will arrive by April, so contrary to what many think - within only four months of the start of the war the number of foreign workers in the construction industry is the same and even larger than it was on the eve of the war.
Just to clear the air - it takes the state about a year and a half to bring in this amount of workers (8,000), and we did it in four months.
And that's precisely when a government decision is made that shuts everything down - contrary to the free recruitment plan that existed in the late 1990s until the early 2000s, when the corporations brought in the workers with their own qualifications together with the construction companies, which are, as mentioned, their clients - the government decided to involve another factor in the process , which only delays him.
The free recruitment plan that existed in the 90s meant that the arrival of workers was very fast.
There was no bureaucracy like today, and the quota was always full.
However, the decision that falls is that the contractors' association will be involved in the selections that are made in the countries themselves, and that each country will have about 1,000 minimum workers to bring them to Israel.
The latest decision means that the number of countries is limited.
Instead of doing this in a quick procedure in which each manpower corporation recruits several hundred workers and brings them to Israel, now it is necessary to carry another body and organize screening days for several thousand workers, which attracts a lot of attention from the local government, and more bureaucracy, coordination and delays.
This is one of the reasons we are left with only India.
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Inauguration event of the new training center of the National Histadrut and Amit for the foreign construction workers/National Histadrut
The solution: releasing the shackles of bureaucracy
So far, the Contractors' Association has classified a total of 19 thousand workers in India in two recruitment cycles, of which about 9,000 workers will receive a permit and come to Israel. Getting on the plane, time to organize with the families, etc. All of these delay the arrival of the workers by at least two months, than would have been possible without all the bureaucracy.
There is no logic in the fact that the contractors' association, a body with clear interests, will be the one to sort and actually be involved in the process of recruiting the foreign workers. Remember that the construction companies are actually our customers, and they are the ones who pay the commissions, the fees and all the costs. If the state wants to involve another factor in the procedure, it is better that it be an impartial factor, such as a large engineering company that will sort the workers and work closely with us construction companies.
Ministry of the Interior With the permission of Minister Moshe Arbel, as well as the Director General of the Ministry of Construction and Housing Mr. Yehuda Morgenstein, they created a new outline similar to the recruitment method in the early 2000s, freed from the shackles of bureaucracy;
According to the outline, the manpower corporations will recruit workers from any possible source regardless of a minimum of 1,000 workers in a particular country and after selections have been made in cooperation with its customers, as mentioned the construction companies, and will quickly flow 10,000 workers in a very short time.
Thus, using the above outline, which will bring 10,000 workers in a short time, plus the workers from India whose rate of arrival is increasing these days - we will be able to reach 50,000 new foreign workers in the industry within two months from today
. It must be remembered that the manpower corporations make a living from the arrival of the foreign workers. Without them , they have no right to exist. As proof of this, 4,000 workers from India who were given to corporations on behalf of state recruitment and not as part of private recruitment, and were consumed by the corporations in a short time. The corporations can contain any amount and especially now, when several dozen new corporations have opened, so the consumption of the corporations is unlimited , and the motivation is sky high.
In order to do this, and save the construction industry, the solution is clear: release the shackles of the bureaucracy, give up the union's selections and return to the free recruitment plan as it was in the late 1990s until the early 2000s. In this way, we will be able to bring in approximately 50,000 foreign workers , out of the 65 thousand that the quota allows, within one and a half to two months from today.
Written by Eldad Nitzan, chairman of the Association of Foreign Manpower Corporations in the construction industry.
In collaboration with Keren Amit
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