The Knesset Committee on Foreign Workers debated Tuesday a proposal by its chairman, Ichud Leumi (National Union) MK Yaakov Katz (Ketzaleh) to pass new legislation regarding foreign workers. The proposed bill would make it mandatory to conduct background security checks on candidates for employment while they are still in their home countries. The candidates’ professional experience would also be looked into.
According to Katz, such a step is warranted because Islamic terror organizations could use foreign workers to carry out attacks on Israeli soil.
The Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor reported this week that the number of foreign workers in Israel continues to rise. According to the Ministry’s statistics, there were 285,000 foreign workers in Israel as of late 2008. This is a 16.3 percent rise in the number of foreign workers from late 2007, when they numbered 245,000.
Exodus from Africa
Some 118,000 of the workers arrived in Israel legally, with a permit to work. About 97,000 stayed in Israel illegally, without a work permit. Another 10,000 workers were African refugees who entered Israel and asked for political asylum. This number does not include another 10,000 African refugees who have not found employment.
The African refugees entered Israel from Sudan, the Ivory Coast and Eritrea.
The rise in the number of foreign workers reflects an increase in the number of legally employed nursing workers. There are no quotas limiting the number of people who can be employed in nursing, and any Israeli who fits the National Insurance Institute’s dependency criteria is eligible for a permit to employ a nursing worker.
The number of nursing permits grew by 19 percent last year, from 45,800 in 2007 to 54,500 in 2008. There was also an increase in the number of foreign workers employed in construction and agriculture, despite a government decision to cut down the number of permits for foreign workers in these fields.