In order to assist hotels in the Dead Sea region in recruiting Israeli workers, in June the Ministerial Committee on Regulatory Affairs assigned to the Ministry of Labor, Welfare and Social Services a pilot program to encourage the absorption of Israeli minority household and cleaning staff in the Dead Sea hotels. The program offers perseverance bonuses of $1,420 per employee per year (in two milestones, after six and twelve months).
To be eligible, the employee must be work 22 hours a week or more. The program will remain in effect through December 31, 2018.
While huge resources are being invested in the development of Dead Sea beaches and infrastructure to attract more tourists, the hotels are finding it difficult to absorb the increased traffic.
The Dead Sea hotels are in trouble: there’s no one to clean them. Maintenance and household workers almost always leave after less than a year, sticking the hotels with a permanent 500 unmanned jobs.
Most of the household staff minorities from the Negev. They commonly stay on the job for a few months and take off – leaving hotel owners in distress.
Minister of Labor and Social Welfare Haim Katz (Likud), said in a statement: “I find it very important to assist employers who have difficulty recruiting manpower, and the new initiative will help hotels meet the demand for workers while encouraging employment in the Arab sector in general and the Bedouin in the Negev in particular.”