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TEL AVIV – A shortage of intense labor forces Israeli technology companies to hire Palestinians in the West Bank, establishing new economic ties between the two sides despite persistent political tension and lack of political will persistent of a peace agreement.
Israel's innovative technology sector – which inspired the nickname "Startup Nation" – is facing a shortage of 10,000 programmers and software engineers, according to the government, posing one of the biggest threats to economic growth outside of the war with its neighbors.
Reasons include competition from US companies such as
Alphabet
Inc.
Google, Amazon.com Inc. and
Microsoft
Inc.
who are willing to pay high salaries for the Israeli talent. Israeli immigration laws also make it difficult to import non-Jewish skilled workers.
About 1,000 Palestinian engineers are currently working for Israeli and international companies, an increase of about 10 percent over last year, said Murad Tahboub of West Bank-based Asal Technologies. puts Palestinian workers in contact with employers.
Oday Dahadha, a 25-year-old computer engineer at Asal, said that he had never met an Israeli before he started working as a subcontractor for
Mellanox
,
an Israeli company of technology and computer equipment, in 2014.
"It's like working with another international company," said Dahadha, who has learned the Python programming language over the years and hopes to one day start his own business.
Dahadha is based in the West Bank and said he was traveling to Tel Aviv about 10 times a year to visit Mellanox, where he spent hours at security checkpoints. "I feel bad about it," he said.
Oday Dahadha, engineer Asal
Photo:
Kobi Wolf for the Wall Street Journal
Palestinians were once rare in Israel's high-tech sector. Many Palestinians oppose the idea of working for Israeli companies without a peace agreement, fearing that such ties will establish the status quo of Israeli control of the West Bank and Gaza.
"We hoped that these [Israeli] companies could do business with us on an equal footing, but now we are no longer dealing with them, "said Munib al-Masri, a reputable Palestinian businessman who has already spoken with Israeli business leaders through the World Economic Forum means to support the peace efforts of the Obama administration. He said that he had stopped working with Israeli companies until the conclusion of a peace agreement.
In the meantime, some Israelis fear that violence or political unrest may interrupt trade with Palestinian workers.
But the depth of the talent shortage in Israel and the high salaries that Israeli companies can offer are breaking down political barriers.
Murad Tahboub CEO of Asal Technologies
Photo:
Kobi Wolf for the Wall Street Journal
"The more demand the Israeli market has, the more it switches at any time to look for talent," Tahboub said.
Israel depends on the technology sector for almost half of its exports. If the labor shortage persists, economic growth will slow, said Ami Appelbaum, chief scientist at Israel's Innovation Authority, a government agency that supports the technology sector, among others.
"The issue here is the Israeli economy," Appelbaum said.
Israel's needs converge with Palestinian efforts to expand the economy of the West Bank, where the unemployment rate is above 18 percent, and to lay the financial foundations for a state.
Palestinian universities produce between 2,500 and 3,000 information technology graduates each year, and many want the experience and higher salaries offered by Israeli companies, according to the Palestinian Association of Societies. information technology, a coordination group representing Palestinian ICT companies.
"With the older generation, it was more of a political problem, but young Palestinians are much more willing to work," said Eliran Sharon, whose Israeli outsourcing company One Execution Hub, based in Herzliya, began working with engineers in the West Bank. there is a year.
The Qalandia checkpoint of the West Bank in Israel. Palestinians working for technology companies in Israel often spend hours on security checks before going to the companies.
Photo:
Matthew Hatcher / LightRocket / Getty Images
The Trump administration team has consulted Israelis and technology Palestinians as it develops a peace plan that it is expected to unveil in the coming months. So far, Palestinian political leaders have boycotted their contacts with the Trump administration, which said in December that it would move the US embassy to Jerusalem and recognize the city as the capital of Israel.
Israeli technical cadres say that there could still be a lot more use of nearby Palestinian labor. According to a study published by Israeli-based Ethosia-Human Resources in May, Israeli technology companies outsource approximately 20,000 jobs in Eastern Europe and India, as well as nearly 62,000 workers in Israel.
But the number of Palestinian workers employed by Israeli companies is increasing because Israeli companies are discovering the benefits of outsourcing closer to home, including developers working at a fraction of Israel's price.
Palestinian technicians in the offices of Asal Technologies in the West Bank.
Photo:
Kobi Wolf for the Wall Street Journal
According to the Israeli business newspaper TheMarker, the average Israeli engineer in the technology sector earns about $ 130,000 a year while his Palestinian peers earn an average of $ 42,000.
Mellanox, the company with which Dahadha works, employs 145 Palestinians – more than any other company in Israel – which represents about 4 percent of its workforce. The company intends to add more.
There are unexpected benefits. At the Jewish holidays last September, while most employees in Israel were on leave, a problem occurred that affected one of Mellanox's largest customers, Microsoft.
"The Palestinian guys understood the problem, solved the problem," said Eyal Waldman, the company's general manager, who hired Palestinians for economic reasons: "We are not a philanthropist".
Write to Felicia Schwartz to [email protected]
