The Employment Situation of Ethiopian Israelis
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The Employment Situation of Ethiopian Israelis Barbara Swirski and Kefalea Yosef Report Presented to the Commission on the Jewish People UJA Federation of New York April 2005 מרכז אדוה, ת.ד. 36529, תל-אביב 61364, טל. 03-5608871, פקס. 03-5602205 Adva Center, POB 36529, Tel Aviv 61364, Tel. 03-5608871, Fax. 03-5602205 e-mail: [email protected] web site: http://www.adva.org The Adva Center is an action-oriented policy analysis institute focused on equality and social justice issues. Board of Directors Staff Yossi Dahan, Chair Executive Director: Barbara Swirski Gilberte Finkel, Treasurer Academic Director: Shlomo Swirski Ismail Abu-Saad Research Coordinator: Etti Konor-Attias Nitza Berkowitch Economist: Etai Shurtz Dani Filc Public Relations/Outreach: Neta Silony Rachel Kallus Development Officer: Kathy Ron Hubert Law-Yone Officer Manager: Yael Eisenberg Uri Ram Research Assistant: Yael Hasson Rivka Savaiya Yitzhak Saporta Oren Yiftachel Yossi Yona Audit Committee Ovadia Golestany Dori Spivak Academic Advisory Committee Majid al-Haj Zeev Degani Henriette Dahan Abraham Doron Linda Efroni Natan Gover Muhammed Habib-Allah Deborah Kalekin-Fishman Hatim Kanaaneh Yossi Katan Andre Mazawi Mariam Mar’i Shoshana Meyer-Young Shoshana Meyer-Young Elan Pappe Motti Peri Frances Radai Sa’adia Rahamim Henry Rosenfeld Marilyn Safir Ella Shohat Aryeh Shirom Judith Shuval Yael Zadok 2 The Employment Situation of Ethiopian Israelis The Adva Center prepared this report in cooperation with the UJA-Federation of New York as a basis for consultations with groups and organizations involved in the absorption of Ethiopian immigrants in Israel. The Adva Center is solely responsible for its contents; we welcome your comments. We would like to thank the UJA-Federation of New York, especially David Mallach, Managing Director, Commission on the Jewish People, UJA-Federation of New York; Stephen Donshik, Executive Director, Israel Office, UJA-Federation of New York; and Ilan Halperin, Senior Overseas Executive of the Israel office, for their initiative, close cooperation and input in the process of preparing the report. We would also like to thank all the organizations and individuals who generously agreed to be interviewed for this study, and in so doing, contributed valuable information and their own perspectives to the development of the report. Barbara Swirski Director, Adva Center 3 Table of Contents Introduction 5 Method 10 Major Findings 11 Discussion and Recommendations 14 Employment Situation of Ethiopian Israelis as a Whole 14 College Graduates 25 Women, Especially Solo Mothers 31 Recently Demobilized Soldiers 34 Older Working-Age Persons 36 Methodology 38 Sources 40 Appendix A: Occupations Reported by 67 Persons With Jobs 41 Appendix B: Job Preferences of Unemployed Persons 42 Appendix C: Persons With Whom In-Depth Interviews Were Conducted 43 Appendix D: Employment Profiles 45 4 The Employment Situation of Ethiopian Israelis THE ADVA CENTER SEEKS Coordinator for research project Half time for 6 months Knowledge of Amharic an advantage Fax CV to 03-5602205 or Email: [email protected] The above want-ad was publicized via the Shatil website, via social change organizations, and via the Student Administration at the Ministry of Absorption. The Shatil ad resulted in about 100 inquiries, only one from an Ethiopian Israeli. The Student Administration ad resulted in the coordinator, Shimon Salomon, faxing the Adva Center a list of about 20 Ethiopian college grads. He was asked to send the candidates’ CVs, after which the three candidates whose academic and work records were deemed most appropriate for the job received invitations to a job interview. All three, equally self-possessed and articulate, passed the interview with flying colors and were invited to a second interview. The choice was not easy; all three appeared highly qualified; in the end Kefalea Yosef, the candidate with the most direct experience in the field of employment, was chosen. The above process revealed a veritable gold mine of potential employees that many Israeli employers do not know anything about. The head interviewer pressed the button, turning off the tape recorder. The interviewee, head of the Human Resources Department of a bus company, leaned over his desk to get closer to two interviewers. “Now I have a question to ask you.” “Go right ahead.” “Do you have any Ethiopians for me? I will take 50, even 100 right away and train them to be bus drivers at my own expense. And I will promise to give them jobs for at least three years.” One month later, the same scene was re-enacted at the end of an interview with the head of the Human Resources Department of another bus company. In the authors’ opinion, it would be wrong to conclude from these examples that Ethiopian Israelis are desirable as bus drivers because they have a special penchant for driving buses. The interviews indicated that Ethiopian Israelis require, on average, a longer training period than other drivers. Why, then, are two rival companies so eager to hire them? The answer, we believe, is that experience has shown that the investment pays off. 5 Introduction Most of the Ethiopian immigrants came to Israel without much formal education and without skills relevant to the Israeli labor market. Those facts made their integration into the work force no simple matter, but not “mission impossible” either. Realizing that the key to success in modern society is education, Jewish communities abroad and Israeli agencies responsible for immigrant absorption made a concerted effort to enable young Ethiopian Israelis to get a college education. This is probably one of the biggest achievements of all the bodies concerned with integrating Ethiopian Israelis into the mainstream of Israeli society. Attention is now turning to the issue of employment as another important key to integration; the present study attempts to shed some light on the problems and to suggest some ways of dealing with them. The Labor Market The bulk of the Ethiopian immigrants came to Israel at a time when the labor market was undergoing polarization into two distinct parts: one for persons with a college education and the other for persons with a high school education or less. The wages of the latter experienced erosion relative to the wages of the former, to the point where many persons without special skills now find it difficult to make a decent living. To make matters worse, many workers are inadequately protected. The Histadrut lost most of its assets in the 1990s and now concentrates on protecting the stronger sectors of the labor force. The state does not enforce its own progressive labor laws, such as the Minimum Wage Law, and employers make increasing use of subcontracting arrangements, which often circumvent collective wage agreements. Employers have also learned to exploit competition among nonimmigrant workers, new immigrants, Palestinians from the Palestinian Authority and migrant workers; some have moved their production lines to the JET countries, Jordan, Egypt and Turkey, and others are looking towards China. 6 The Policies Adopted Aware of these developments, absorption agencies created special strategies for the new immigrants from Ethiopia, options designed to give them an advantage over Palestinian and migrant workers: vocational training, mostly for men; assistance with job placement, through special projects employing mediators between the employer and the potential worker; and income support payments. Regarding vocational training, experience has shown that the best labor policy for new immigrants is to channel them directly into the labor market, rather than referring them first to vocational training courses (King, 2003: 7). Common sense tells us the same: over the last 15 years, hundreds of thousands of migrant workers have been employed in agriculture, construction and personal services. Born and raised in countries that are typified as “agrarian” and socially “traditional,” these workers had no trouble creating a niche for themselves in the Israeli labor market. Still, vocational training is the order of the day, not as a prerequisite for work in Israel but in accordance with the principle of “life-long learning,” alongside work. Job placement projects employing mediators have been successful in helping thousands of Ethiopian Israelis to find work, and they need to be continued. Income support may compete with low-paying jobs, but the solution is not to lower or abolish income support but to raise wages, restructure certain jobs, enforce labor laws, and provide protection to Ethiopian Israeli workers. An Adva Center study, based on the 1999 Labor Force Survey (Swirski and Swirski, 2002) found that the most important factors in determining whether or not an Ethiopian Israeli of the primary working age (25-54) was gainfully employed were years of education and length of time in the country. Among the nearly 15,000 Ethiopian Israelis aged 25-54 living in Israel, over half were in the labor force (either employed or actively looking for work), compared with 76% of all Israelis. Women worked less than men: For the 25-34 age group, 74% of Ethiopian Israeli men were in the labor force, compared with 81% of all Israeli men; for women, the corresponding figures were 46% and 66%. Gender gaps were found for older age groups as well. For persons aged 35-44, 61% of Ethiopian Israeli men, compared with 86% of all Israeli 7 men; and only 35% of Ethiopian Israeli women compared with 69% of all Israel women were in the labor force. The gap was greatest for persons aged 45-54: 76% of Ethiopian Israeli men, compared with 87% of all Israeli men; and a mere 18% of Ethiopian Israeli women, compared with 69% of all Israeli women were in the work force (ibid: 17). Employment surveys of Ethiopian Israelis were conducted in a number of localities by the Brookdale Institute. The latest survey, of 241 immigrants living in Haifa, found that the gender gap remains wide: 50% of men were found to be employed and an additional 24% looking for work, compared with 19% of women who were employed and 17% more looking for work (King, 2003: 2).