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Tuesday, February 15, 2022

More than 150,000 Palestinians now work for Israelis

The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics Labor Force Survey for the fourth quarter of 2021 has been released.

There are now 153,000 Palestinian workers employed in Israel or in the settlements, which I believe is the highest since Oslo.  It is an increase of 8,000 workers over the 3rd quarter of 2021.

Here is the trend in fourth quarter Palestinian employees in Israel and settlements since 2012:


 

The number of employed persons in Israeli settlements increased from about 21,600 thousand in the 3rd quarter 2021 to about 22,400 thousand employed person in the 4th quarter 2021. This is not close to the highest number working in settlements - that number reached 28,000 in 2018.

While most Palestinians working for Israelis work in construction, all of the increases between the third and fourth quarters were in other sectors: manufacturing, commerce and hospitality.
 
The average daily wage for Arab employees in Israel and settlements was about 269 NIS, about 1% higher than the third quarter and 3% higher than in 2020.

To give an idea of how dependent each economy is on the other, about 3.7% of all workers in Israel live in the Palestinian territories while about 15% of all Palestinian workers (West Bank and Gaza combined) work for Israelis.