Housing Ministry Director General: "We Will Bring 80,000 Foreign Workers"

Yehuda Morgenstern promises that in the coming days the government will approve bringing tens of thousands of foreign workers into the construction sector, which has been paralyzed since the start of the war. And what about compensation for buyers whose apartments are delayed? "There will be compensation, but buyers will also have to absorb a little."

"A proposed resolution that will raise the foreign worker quota from 50,000 to 70,000 is already ready and will be submitted to the government for approval in the coming days."
About 5,000 workers from India have been selected for screening, and this week the Housing Ministry and the Builders Association will carry out screenings in Sri Lanka," says Morgenstern. According to the agreement with the Finance Ministry, successful completion of the move in Sri Lanka will pave the way for an increase in the number of workers in the private sector.

The first ten thousand workers will arrive at the end of February, and the Housing Ministry expects an additional number of workers to arrive by the end of the first quarter.
These measures will drastically change the labor market in construction. They came about because, since the start of the war, Palestinian workers, who made up the main workforce in hard, basic labor, have been denied entry. Exactly a decade ago there were only about 6,000 foreign workers in Israel, most of them from China, and in a few months the figure will be 11 times greater and they will come from various countries, including for the first time India, Sri Lanka and perhaps even Kazakhstan."