Gush Katif evacuees, a year later
Photo: David Vaaknin
Minister Yishai tries to help
Photo: Gil Yohanan
Report: Gush Katif evacuees not finding work
Despite Olmert's instruction to prioritize them among job seekers, 100 former Gush Katif residents unable to find work
Pursuant to losing their livelihood in Gush Katif, some one hundred of the evictees appealed to government and public offices searching for work. Despite Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's instruction that they be prioritized among job seekers, not one of them was able to find employment.
In recent months, various sources, among them the Disengagement Authority and the National Employment Service (NES), have attempted to bring the Gush Katif evacuees - most of whom lost their livelihood upon leaving Gaza - back into the job market.
As such, the NES, at the request of Minister for Industry, Trade and Labor Eli Yishai, consolidated a package comprised of unemployment benefits, vocational training courses, and other relief options for the former residents of Gush Katif.
Concurrently, Olmert instructed government and public offices to give hiring preference to evictees. The offices issued some 100 job offers and asked the NES to find them workers from amongst the evacuees.
However, an NES report – which will be presented to ministers on the committee dealing with the Gush Katif evictees-, revealed that, despite the existence of some 100 job offers, not one of the evictees was hired.
Why did this occur? The NES doesn't have a clear answer. Sources in the job market declared that "it is unreasonable to believe that all one hundred Gush Katif jobseekers were unsuited for the jobs provided and it is unreasonable that at least a portion of them weren't hired."
"Isn't it enough that they suffered upon being evicted? Now they're not being helped, even in the public sector?" the sources raged.
Minister Yishai wrote a letter to the government secretary asking that representatives of the Gush Katif evacuees be allowed to present their plight to ministers on the committee, but his request was denied.
