Following the war, the economy is facing a severe shortage of workers in a variety of industries. There are those whose activities have been closed or reduced, and some of the workers have been placed on unpaid leave or their jobs have been reduced.
The shortage of workers stems from a challenging combination of hundreds of thousands of workers leaving for reserve duty, the closure of the education system that leads parents of young children to stay at home with their children, the departure of Thai workers who worked in agriculture, the closure of construction sites due to fear of bringing Palestinian workers into Jewish communities, and the absence of Arab-Israeli workers from their workplaces due to mutual fear and suspicion during this sensitive period.
While manufacturing, agriculture and construction, food chains, the health system, and others are dealing with a shortage of workers, the activity of other industries such as tourism and recreation and leisure has become irrelevant, due to gathering restrictions, and mainly due to the general mood of the public.
With all the criticism of the dysfunction of government ministries, it is worth noting the rapid mobilization of the Ministries of Economy, Labor, Employment Service and Rachel, which within a short time established a platform for synchronization between vacancies and workers whose jobs became redundant due to the situation, or who were placed on unpaid leave. It would have been better if the government had published this welcome initiative more prominently among employers and the general public. So that the synchronization between the supply of workers and demand is carried out better and faster.
Turn lemon into lemonade
Those who believe, especially in government ministries, that increasing the volume of imports is the main solution to the expected shortage of strategic products and fresh food and to the problem of the cost of living, even if it harms the viability of local production, it is worth thinking about what our situation will be if we are forced to close the seaports. The government of Israel must internalize the strategic importance of the agriculture, food and other industries that produce products critical to national security and to ensure the functional continuity of the business sector in times of emergency and war.
For more than a decade, the OECD has been calling for the adoption of pathways of direct support for farmers through grants to encourage innovation implementation. Such a policy of grants to invest in technological innovation should also be applied in the construction sectors.
It is possible to "turn the lemon into lemonade" and take advantage of the period when construction sites and agricultural fields in the south and north are shut down against their will to support these industries through grants conditioned on investment in technological innovation.
This will strengthen their resilience in future crises by reducing dependence on foreign manpower, will help increase labor productivity, and may even encourage quality employment of Israeli workers at decent wages.
The writer is director of the Center for Government and Economics at the Israel Democracy Institute
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