Israel – Government programs for helping the haredi population integrate into the workforce are insufficient and inefficient says a report by the State Comprtoller that will shortly released.
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The report revealed several deficiencies in government programs, noting that some of the projects are not ready for implementation, sufficient oversight has not been established for the initiative, and in some cases not all budgets allocated for the different programs have been utilised.
State Control Committee chairman Amnon Cohen of Shas said that the findings showed that the government was guilty for the “lack of [haredi] integration into the work force due to contempt, bureaucracy and laziness,” and that claims made by Finance Minister Yair Lapid on the issue were false in light of the report’s conclusions.
The document found that no specific program for encouraging haredi integration into the workforce has been devised and that the Ministry for the Economy and Trade has not prepared an operative plan for employment, while a staff panel has not been established to deal with the issue either.
“This is a socio-economic mission of national importance, but the picture that arises indicates that progress in dealing with it is slight and slow,” the report states.
Many haredi men over the past 35 years have chosen to study full time in yeshiva rather than perform military service and subsequently join the workforce. According to Treasury calculations, the cost to the Israeli economy in 2009 of haredim postponing employment until above the age of 31 was NIS 4 billion.
One example highlighted by the report was the allocation by the Treasury of a special fund for financing special study programs for haredim from 2005 to 2008. In 2008, only 50 percent of the funds were used, while at the same time, requests by academic institutions to establish courses for haredim were not approved.
The state comptroller’s report also notes that the targets set by the government for haredi employment by 2020 are unrealistic.
The report cites employment data from 2008, showing that the total rate of employment in the haredi sector between the ages of 25 and 64 was 48 percent compared with the national rate for non-haredi Jewish population of 77 percent. For haredi men, employment stood at 40 percent, compared with 82% for non-haredi Jews, and 57% for haredi women, compared with 74% for non-haredi Jewish women.
More recent data published by the Bank of Israel in 2012 however, shows male haredi employment at 45.6% and female haredi employment at 61.2%.
The government’s target for men by 2020 is 63 percent, and for 9,200 haredi males to joining the workforce every year.
The report noted that just 620 men signed up to the central government program, “Income with Dignity,” for professional training for haredi men, during the years 2005 to 2010, with 250 finding employment as a result.
Similarly, a government work placement program has succeeded in placing just 1,250 haredim in employment since 2006.
“This contribution is important, but it’s rate is almost insignificant bearing in mind the targets established by the government,” the report notes.
Said MK Cohen, “They promised to provide fishing rods instead of fish. They’ve cut out the fish and the rods haven’t been made yet.”
The State Control Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on the issue this Tuesday, with Minister for the Economy and Trade Naftali Bennett as well representatives from other ministries expected to be in attendance.
Content is provided courtesy of the Jerusalem Post
The Bank of Israel report earlier this year highlighted the fact that the accelerating growth of the chareidi population is a ticking time bomb for the economy of EY. While the controversial issue of drafting kollel yungerleit has attracted most of the attention of politicians, the real long-term focus needs to be on providing boys and girls in chareidi schools with basic secular academic training and job skills and teaching them the importance of earning a parnassah and planning their family size to reflect what they can afford to house, clothe and educate. Job training and family planning are not the most popular issues in Charedi community, but if ignored, they are digging themselves into a collective long-term hole from which they will never emerge.
So the chareidi employment rate is 2/3 of the general population employment rate? That’s an issue, I guess, but hardly makes the chareidim look like the leeches that the seculars portray them as.