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NEWS
Only 15% of Farm Workers in Israel are Jewish
By G. Kleiman
Merely 15 percent of all those working in the Israeli
agriculture industry are Jewish according to a survey
conducted by Oketz Maarachot. The survey included 5,000
workers at 276 companies in 2004 and 216 companies in
2005.
Only 4.2 percent of the total labor force worked in
agriculture in 2004 and the agricultural job market in Israel
is marked by steady downsizing.
"In recent years we have been witness to the desiccation and
uprooting of orchards and the orchard industry is a branch of
farming that requires many hands to do the work," said Ami
Bergman, joint CEO of Oketz Maarachot. "Other trends that
contributed to this process are the constant transition to
sophisticated and technologically-advanced agricultural
processes which require fewer working hands, as well as
restrictions on the number of foreign workers in Israel.
Furthermore the average wage in agriculture is among the
lowest in Israel—approximately half of the average wage
in the general market."
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