Palestinian Employment in Israel Is Up; Where’s the Coverage?
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by Elder of Ziyon
The gate of Rafah border crossing is seen, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip November 18, 2017. Photo: REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa.
The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics reported that the number of Palestinian workers in Israel and working in Israeli settlements increased by a huge amount in the first quarter of 2022, compared to the previous quarter.
The increase was so large that it more than made up for the decrease of people employed in Palestinian-controlled areas.
The number of Palestinian workers in Israel and the settlements skyrocketed from 153,000 to 204,000, an increase of 33% in a single quarter. Of those, the number of workers in settlements — which the Palestinian Authority opposes — went up from 22,400 0to 31,000, an increase of 38%.
At the same time, the number of workers within the Arab areas of the West Bank and Gaza decreased from 939,000 to 904,000 in the first quarter.
The survey didn’t mention the average wages of the workers in the West Bank and Gaza. But over the past few years, the daily wage was far less than half that of workers in Israel, which was NIS 268 ($78.80) a day in this report. In 2020, the average Palestinian wage was NIS 104 a day.
If we assume that this number has increased to NIS 112, that means that fully 35% of the total income for Palestinians comes from Israeli employers.
