Industry & Trade Minister (Shas) Eli Yishai on Wednesday approved an emergency plan intended to address the sharp increase in unemployment. The plan calls for spending NIS 300 million towards bringing 100,000 unemployed Israelis into the workforce in 2009. The proposed budget requires treasury approval at this time.

The plan will take 53,000 people, evaluate them, retrain them, and prepare them for the workplace. The second phase calls for finding work for 47,000 people. The plan addresses six different sectors; academics, high-tech, the Bedouin sector, the chareidi sector, hard-hit municipalities and pockets of high unemployment areas in major cities.

Yossi Farchi, who heads unemployment benefit services explains “The plan it to extricate as many people as quickly as possible from unemployment”.

Yishai turned to Finance Minister Roni Bar-On, seeking immediate approval, explaining they are trying to prevent a major wave of unemployment and this demands immediate action.

(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)