·
Reported Palestinian
employment in the Israeli economy declined sharply during the COVID-19 lockdown
in the spring of 2020. Between January
and April, the number of employee posts held by Palestinians declined by 64
percent (about 68,000 posts). Reported
Palestinian employment began to recover in May, and returned to its precrisis
levels in September.
·
More than two-thirds of the
decline in employee posts (about 47,000 posts) occurred in the construction
industry, alongside a decline of about 51,000 posts held by Israelis in the
industry. Combined, these declines were
reflected in a decrease of about 35 percent in the number of employee posts in
the industry between January and April 2020.
This decline reflected various constraints that made it difficult for
Palestinian laborers to enter Israel, and for activity in the industry, even
though the industry was exempted from the lockdown. The employment of Israelis in the
construction industry has not yet returned to its precrisis level.
·
Targeted surveys conducted
during the crisis among Palestinian laborers who worked in Israel at the start
of the year (prior to the crisis) show that only about 22 percent of them
continued to work in Israel in April, and that the wages and scope of
employment of those who continued to work declined moderately. By August, more than half of Palestinian workers
who were employed in Israel at the start of the year were re-employed, and
their monthly wages were lower than at the beginning of the year, due to the
low number of work days in August.
·
According to a targeted
survey, most of the workers employed in Israel in August stayed overnight in
Israel for at least part of the month.
About half of all workers noted that their employers provided them with
reasonable or good sleeping and hygiene conditions, and only a few noted that
they had bad sleeping and hygiene conditions.
The creation of reasonable residential arrangements for Palestinian
workers in Israel is expected to make it easier for some of the employment in
Israel to continue even in cases when movement restrictions between Israel and
the Palestinian Authority are required due to morbidity.
Palestinian workers were employed in
about 24 percent of employee posts (wage slips) in the construction industry in
Israel in 2019, and in about 18 percent of posts in the agriculture industry. Employment in Israel is critical for the
Palestinian economy. According to
Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) estimates, about 17.8 percent
of Palestinian employees who lived in Judea and Samaria in 2019 were employed
in the Israeli economy, while the daily wage in Israel (NIS 254) was more than
double the daily wage in the Palestinian economy in Judea and Samaria (NIS
128.6). As such, about 36 percent of the
total wage of Palestinian residents of Judea and Samaria came from employment
in Israel.
The scope of reported Palestinian
employment in Israel declined sharply due to the spread of the COVID-19
pandemic and the health lockdowns in Israel and in the Palestinian Authority. The number of employee posts held by
Palestinian workers in the Israeli economy that were reported by Israeli
employers declined by about 64 percent—about 68,000 posts—from January to April
(Figure 1). The decline in Palestinian
employment within sovereign Israeli territory was sharper than the decline in
employment in Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria due to the requirement
that those working within sovereign Israeli territory not return to their homes
in the Palestinian Authority for a number of weeks, which did not apply to
those working in Judea and Samaria. In
addition, their entry into sovereign Israeli territory was approved only during
specific windows of time. These
requirements were intended to lower COVID-19 contagion between Israel and the
Palestinian Authority. Alongside these
data, which indicate a decline in reported employment of Palestinians in
Israel, PCBS data indicate a parallel decline in the number of those employed without
a permit from about 22,700 workers in the first quarter to about 15,300
workers in the second quarter of 2020.
Starting in May, following the first
lockdown, reported Palestinian employment in Israel began to recover, and by
September, it reached its level from the beginning of the year. At the same time, according to PCBS
estimates, the number of workers with no permit increased to about 30,000 by
the third quarter of the year.