Israel has turned to India and Sri Lanka in its search for much-needed workers to revive its largely comatose construction industry, after the country deported thousands of Palestinian workers and revoked their work permits following Hamas' Oct 7 attack on it.
Around 82,000 Palestinians worked in the country's construction industry prior to the assault, accounting for a third of the sector's workforce.
Left without these workers - as well as another 2,000 from China and Eastern Europe who returned home after Oct 7 - construction sites across Israel have gone quiet, significantly denting the country's economy. The labour shortage has been exacerbated by the mobilisation of hundreds of thousands of Israeli reservists for the war against Hamas.
The Israel Builders Association (IBA) estimates that the industry, one of the country's biggest economic sectors with a market size valued at US$71 billion (S$94 billion) in 2022, has been operating at just 15 per cent of its pre-war capacity.
This has brought urgency to the recruitment of fresh foreign workers, and representatives from IBA will be in India and Sri Lanka to screen applicants for various roles such as plastering, ceramic tiling, building formwork and iron bending.
"The goal is bringing 10,000 (workers) very quickly to Israel because time is running (out) and we are already in a big, big problem financially," Mr Shay Pauzner, IBA's deputy director-general, told The Sunday Times on the phone from Tel Aviv.
These workers are expected to be in Israel by the end of January, as "we are working very fast because the situation is very, very dire", he added.
Denne historien er fra December 24, 2023-utgaven av The Straits Times.
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Denne historien er fra December 24, 2023-utgaven av The Straits Times.
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