In recent weeks, it has certainly been evident that the economy is returning to work: malls and restaurants are filling up and roads are becoming more congested. However, some industries are finding it difficult to recover and return to full activity.
In manufacturing, for example, the percentage of factories that are fully operational is only 18%. The shortage of workers is still the most acute problem facing Israeli industry: about 70 per cent of factories report that they are short of workers.
The shortage of workers in the industry was created by extensive reserve mobilization, the evacuation of civilians from their places of residence in a way that makes it impossible to continue employing them, and the partial opening of educational institutions, which prevents parents who supervise their children from coming to work.
Evacuation by helicopter during an iron sword war, photo: AP
Although industrialists are crying out for working hands, in some cases bringing in foreign workers won't really help, at least not immediately. This is the case with the Crystal Dome factory in Sderot, for example, whose professionally trained workers were evacuated to hotels in Eilat and the Dead Sea.
CEO Eran Shalish, like other industrialists from the Sderot industrial zone, complains that the evacuated workers have a negative incentive not to work at least until the end of the quarter, even though the number of alarms is significantly smaller in Sderot.
A third told Israel Hayom: "We've been in Sderot for more than 20 years. We went through all the rounds and kept exporting, and nothing broke us. The current event is different. I will say that the bottom line is that no Hamas will break us. We'll do whatever it takes to get through this, but we need help. And the state is not helping us, but quite the opposite."
Eran Shalish, Photo: None
"Many of the factory workers have experienced severe trauma. Terrorists were walking around in front of the windows - an event that no one can imagine. Our employees were evacuated to remote locations, most of them to the Dead Sea, Eilat, Jerusalem. They are all professional workers, assembly line operators, not something to which alternatives can be found from moment to moment.
They were evacuated, and we started working from the first week of the war.
"It wasn't fun in Sderot. We came with a small team of managers, and we started trying to operate what we could on unconditional terms. It's a closed military zone, but we're an essential factory, so we got permission to work. But no one imagined that it would take an entire quarter, and the hand was still tilted. Yesterday, the workers received a notice that they had been extended until December 31 – this is a full quarter in which the factory is not working, and is functioning at very, very low capacity."
A third believes that bringing in foreign workers will not help most factories. "We are not agriculture, we need professional workers, our workers. We can't train new employees for what's here. And there aren't really any employees either. There is no practical way to train new employees at the moment in the given situation.
"We have reached a point where Sderot is quieter than the center today. At the moment, employees have an incentive to stay idle in hotels, and when the event is over, many of them, unfortunately, will have nowhere to return to. Much of the industry will collapse. You can't last an entire quarter without producing, we're losing our market. We're terribly behind, and we're getting a lot of orders that we can't produce."
Last Thursday, the Labor and Welfare Committee approved grants to encourage continued employment for evacuees, and for those employed in the evacuated area: workers who were evicted from their homes, or who were employed in the evacuated area, and who return to work will also receive a grant of NIS 3,000 per month for work during the grant period. Time will tell if the grant helps.
"We will not employ Palestinians"
Oren Cohen, CEO and owner of the Mandelbaum mattress factory, located in the Sderot industrial zone, told Israel Hayom: "By October 9, we were back to work. There was a small team of workers, who decided to come despite the risk, because there was a great demand from the army. The army ordered mattresses for soldiers who were drafted into the reserves and who are in the field, so we operated the production line of army mattresses.
"We have found ourselves in a situation today where we have no Israeli workers scattered throughout the country – in Eilat, the Dead Sea and in the center – nor are there any Palestinian workers from the West Bank. We will no longer employ Palestinian workers, even if possible. It is impossible to find Israeli workers to work on a production floor – it is almost impossible.
Oren Cohen,
"In the meantime, the state is promoting bringing foreign workers from India, but to the best of my knowledge they are intended for the construction and agriculture sectors, and not for industry, leaving us without a solution and unable to reach full capacity. At the moment we are at 50% capacity compared to normal days. We are facing a broken trough."
Cohen adds: "We continue to pay wages as usual to all the Israeli workers who were evicted, so there is an incentive here not to come to work. We offered an incentive of 30% salary increase for everyone who comes to the factory, and these are also costs that we absorb in order to persuade people to come."
The President of the Manufacturers Association and Chairman of the Employers' Presidium Dr. Ron Tomer recently informed Economy and Industry Minister Nir Barkat and Labor Minister Yoav Ben-Tzur that the industry needs more than 20,<> foreign workers immediately in order to maintain national resilience and meet the needs of the economy.
"Critical lack of workers"
In a letter sent to ministers last Thursday, Dr. Tomer wrote: "Today the industry is short of more than 25,<> workers, and there is no telling if and when they will be able to return to work. These are workers at all levels of employment, and especially production workers in positions that unfortunately cannot be filled by Israeli workers, despite repeated attempts. The continuation of the current situation, without providing an immediate and significant response to the manpower problem, is liable to severely harm national resilience and our ability to continue supplying the needs of the economy."
Ron Tomer, Chairman of the Manufacturers Association, Photo: Oren Ben Hakon
Dr. Tomer added that he immediately requires "about 22,<> foreign workers for the industrial sectors. This quota should be open and under minimum wage and other restrictions, similar to the quotas recently passed."
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