Israel and Morocco Sign Deal to Bring Moroccan Workers to Fill Labor Shortage

During her visit to Morocco in June, Israeli Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked met with her counterpart Abdelouafi Laftit and Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita. This meeting resulted in a bilateral agreement for the sending of Moroccan health and construction workers to Israel. "The goal is to start bringing Moroccan workers to Israel in the nursing and construction sectors within a month," the Israeli official said in the official press release. This agreement should already have been initialed. In total, 250 nursing assistants and 600 construction workers are expected to be recruited. Two months later, Moroccan workers should start arriving in Tel Aviv.

Israel plans to launch a pilot program that would welcome Moroccan workers, including 15,000 specialized in construction, to help alleviate its labor shortage, reports identitejuive.com. The country has an estimated need for "about 40,000 workers, in 10 different professions," Yitzhak Moyal, president of the Construction and Wood Workers’ Union within the Histadrout Israeli labor federation, told The Jerusalem Post. And he added: "The program could really improve the pace of construction in Israel."