Months of rocket and drone attacks and escalation in Israel’s North could have a lasting impact on employment in the area, according to Inbar Bezek, former MK and current CEO of the Galilee Economic Company.
The attacks, which have led to the evacuation of all residents living up to 3.5 km. from the border, could continue to drive and keep people away even after the war, Bezek said.
A significant proportion of the area’s residents are employed in four branches – all of which have been badly harmed by the conflict in the north: tourism, construction, agriculture, and traditional industry.
Major challenges ahead
The largest of these is industry in which around 20% of the area’s residents are employed, Bezek explained. Many of the factories in the north are partially or fully owned by foreigners, said Bezek, who explained that this means many may leave, taking jobs with them.
“When the owners are not Israeli they start asking themselves: ‘why do I need this headache?” she said, adding that factories are already exploring options to relocate. In the better case they will stay in Israel, but in the worse case, many may leave the country.
These companies and factories are facing three big challenges: many of their workers are evacuated and not working, suppliers are having a hard time delivering raw materials to factories near the border, and many workers are not coming to work in areas where they do not feel safe, even if they have not been formally evacuated.
This problem is made worse by the government’s treatment of the evacuation line as the compensation line, said Bezek. “The Defense Ministry decided to evacuate people up until 3.5 KM from the border, so the finance ministry said ‘ok I will compensate whoever was evacuated, and for whoever was not evacuated, it is business as usual.'”
“It is a mistake to look at it this way,” she said, offering for example the situation in which an employee lives 5KM from the border but is employed in an evacuated town where businesses are shuttered.
“As far as the state is concerned, you aren’t eligible for anything, but your workplace is closed,” said Bezek, explaining that these workers were offered unemployment benefits in the framework of unpaid leave, a solution offered to all Israelis during the war, with no special solution for residents of the north.
The opposite problem is also true, Bezek explained, saying that for companies who are not in evacuated areas, but employ many people who have been evacuated, it is difficult to keep their business running. These evacuees can not be fired, but the government has not yet paid the companies that employ them back for the wages that are still being paid to them, said Bezek.
This is not the only government funding that has been late in coming, said Bezek. Grants that were meant to help cover the months of January and February were dealt with in May, and grants for March and April were discussed in the Knesset in June, said Bezek.
“I hear heartbreaking stories,” she said, mentioning a widowed mother with a small business who told her that the grants she gets go right into the minus in her bank account, and that her account has almost been closed a number of times.
Bezek’s understanding is that this policy of late payments is determined by the Finance Minister who wants to avoid businesses who know the criteria “cheating” or “playing the system.”
“This is nonsense, because logically speaking, the criteria [for who is eligible] will not be changed each month,” she said, adding that the government needs to give people the security and peace of mind that they will be taken care of when their employment or business is hurt by the war.
Businesses up until 9 km. away from the border were offered some financial help, but individuals outside of the evacuation zone were not, and many businesses just outside the 9 km. area are unable to function due to the war, said Bezek.
A rafting business located on the Jordan River some 11 km. away from the border is not eligible, she mentioned as an example, but absolutely no one is going rafting that far north she explained.
It is critical not only to support employment in Israel’s north, but to support hi-quality employment and high quality jobs in order to ensure that young people and stronger populations stay in the region, she said.
Due in part to the incredibly diverse climate in the area which enables research, the north has the potential to be a hub for food and agro tech, said Bezek, saying that much has been invested in this in the past eight years.
After October 7 over 90% of the 81 food and agro tech companies have left the area, she said. If these companies do not return or are not replaced by tech companies or others offering quality jobs the north will be cast 10 years back in terms of employment options and attractiveness to young people, she explained.
Polls have shown that some 40% of those evacuated are considering not returning to the north, said Bezek who explained that those who do not return are likely to be those with the option to relocate, leaving the socioeconomically weaker populations in the north and exacerbating existing inequality.
The North and its wellbeing are central to Israel, Bezek said, “The fields of Metulla that separate the town’s houses from Lebanon, the fields of Misgav Am that separate the border from the houses, they are the border.”
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