ISRAEL DIGEST
Specially compiled by The Jerusalem Post
—
Back To Work
When no one was looking, Israel solved its unemployment problem.
LARRY DERFNER ISRAEL CORRESPONDENT
A
lmost unnoticed, one of Is- sion in services, with jobs in every- ment. In the last year and a half,
rael's worst economic and thing from new shopping malls to the Dan hotel chain, one of Israel's
social problems of the last delivering sandwiches," said Mike largest, has hired 700 new work-
decade — high unemploy- Eilan, editor of the Israeli busi- ers with the expansion of the Dan
ment
ment — has been largely solved. ness magazine Link.
Panorama in Tel Aviv. Dan ho-
And it has taken less than two
The high-tech industry is tels expect to hire 630 more peo-
years to do it.
booming so strongly that skilled ple when the Jerusalem Dan
The jobless rate, which stood jobs go begging, especially in soft- Pearl and the Eilat Dan open in
at 11.2 percent at the beginning ware, Mr. Eilan noted.
the middle of this year, said
of 1993, is now 7.5 percent. When
Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin Aharon Shaham, the chain's se-
unemployment was at its peak, recently said this was the main nior vice president for human re-
the government's most hopeful reason why 15,000 ex-Lsraelis had sources.
prediction was that the figure returned to the country in the last
The whole line of hotel em-
could be brought down to just be- year (while only 14,000 Israelis ployees — managers, gourmet
low 10 percent by the end of 1994. had moved abroad).
chefs, bakers and housekeepers
At the unemployment office for
The Israeli branch of Intel, — are in demand.
non-academic workers in the which designs and manufactures
"We have high expectations
Greater Tel Aviv area, more than microprocessors — the function that the peace process is going to
one-third of those who sign up for chip, or "brain," of a computer — contribute to the growth in
benefits find jobs within three started 1994 with just over 1,200 tourism," Mr. Shaham said.
days. Two-thirds get work with- employees and ended November "What we've seen already is that
in a month. Less than 1 percent with more than 1,400.
there are a lot more businesspeo-
receive unemployment payments
As Intel developed its new-gen- ple coming to Israel, from all
for the full six months allowed. eration microprocessor, the new over."
(In fact, Greater Tel Aviv is where hires included designers and en-
The peace process also has
the bulk of Israel's jobs are to be gineers at the Haifa design cen- made the world a friendlier place
found. The situation is much less ter, as well as low-skilled factory for Israeli exporters, especially in
encouraging in the traditionally floor workers at the Jerusalem East Asia and Europe, and the
poor development towns
of the Galilee and Negev).
At first, the decline in
unemployment was due to
the closure of the West
Bank and Gaza; Israelis
were merely replacing
low-paid Palestinian la-
borers who, because of the
upsurge in terror, were no
longer allowed to work
across the Green Line (Is-
rael's border before the
Six-Day War). The Israeli
economy wasn't creating
that many new jobs.
But this is not the case
today. The crop picking
and unskilled construction
jobs which the Palestini- The demand for consumer goods in Israel is sky-rocketing.
ans lost are not being filled
by Israelis but by laborers
from Thailand, Romania, Turkey manufacturing plant.
new contracts have resulted in
and African countries. Most new
"The reason for all this is that new jobs.
entrants to the Israeli job market the computer chip industry is in
There are other major reasons
have moved on to better things.
an incredible surge. The sales of for the rise in the number of jobs.
Newspapers run columns of computers worldwide are amaz- Israeli incomes keep going up —
ads for jobs across the employ- ing. This is a global phenomenon, now averaging about $14,000 a
ment spectrum, from computers, not just an Israeli one," said Max- year — and companies have to
electronics, accounting and sales ine Fassberg, head of communi- hire more people to keep pace
to clerical work, deliveries and ty relations in Israel for Intel.
with the galloping demand for
housekeeping.
The growth in tourism also has consumer goods.
"There's been a major expan- provided a large boost in employ- WORK page 35
S1 EQUALS 3.039 NIS (shekels) - Close Price 12/27/94 —
Mr. Smith Goes To Tel Aviv
Larry Smith, a senior manag- mentation of Cellcom's digital
er at BellSouth in Florida, has network and management of
been named chief operating of- company operations.
ficer of Cellcom, Israel's second
The U.S.-born executive,
cellular phone company.
who joined BellSouth in 1981
Mr. Smith, whose appoint- as a marketing account exec-
ment is effective immediately, utive, will live in Tel Aviv with
will be responsible for oversee- his wife.
ing the building and imple-
Interest Rates Are Status Quo
Interest rates will remain un-
changed in January at 17 per-
cent, the Bank of Israel
announced.
Despite November's 1.3 per-
cent jump in the Consumer
Price Index (CPI), the central
bank decided to leave the rates
alone following strong pressure
by the Treasury and the busi-
ness sector to cut them.
Asked whether he would re-
duce interest rates following a
moderate CPI increase, Bank
of Israel Governor Jacob
Frenkel said "we don't work on
the basis of a single index. The
goal is for us to be convinced
that inflation has come down
to the target levels set by the
government and the Bank of Is-
rael (between 8-11 percent)."
A Scoop: Ice Cream Tax Imposed
Imported ice cream will now be they are made with subsidized
taxed, the Israel Knesset Fi- milk products, while Israeli
nance Committee decided.
companies must pay the real
The tax was requested by cost of their ingredients.
the Industry and Trade Min-
This makes Israeli brands
istry, which charged that 'Eu- more expensive.
ropean ice creams, in
The tax will be imposed on
particular, do not compete fair- all imports, not just those from
ly with Israeli brands because the European Community.
This Deal Really Takes The Cake
Elite Industries of Israel has in- from J. Lyons, a member of Al-
vested $5 million in the pur- lied Domeco, which is one of the
chase of a 66 percent share of a largest food groups in England.
cake and baked goods produc-
Spolem, a cooperative of Pol-
ing factory in Poland, the com- ish workers which owns bak-
pany informed the Tel Aviv eries and other businesses
Stock Exchange.
there, is Elite's partner in the
The shares were acquired factory.
Companies Face Bankruptcy Danger
Some 4.5 percent of all busi-
nesses in Israel are in danger
of bankruptcy, according to a
survey by Business Data In-
ternational (BDI).
Some 12 percent of the
15,000 companies surveyed
were categorized as "high risk."
BDI's model, developed by
the Belgian branch of parent
company Graydon Interna-
tional, takes rates of liquidity,
efficiency and profitability into
account, along with payment,
financing and work relation
methods and policies.