Wearing a safety belt, helmet and work boots, Raju Nishad navigates the scaffolding, hammering blocks that will form part of a building in a new neighbourhood in central Israel’s town of Beer Yaakov.
While he and other Indians working alongside him do not look out of place on the expansive construction site, they are relative newcomers to Israel’s building industry.
They are part of an Israeli government effort to fill a void left by tens of thousands of Palestinian construction workers barred from entering Israel since 7 October 2023.
Israel’s latest wars with its regional neighbours and global accusations over its “war crimes” and “genocide” in Gaza did not stop Indian migrant workers from turning to Israel, where they are lured but what would be considered “high earnings” in comparison to what they would make back home.
Around 16,000 workers have come from India over the past year – and Israel has plans to bring thousands more.
New recruitment drive
India is the world’s fifth-largest economy and one of the fastest growing, but it has also struggled to generate enough full-time jobs for millions of people.
Indians have been employed in Israel for decades as caregivers looking after elderly Israelis, while others work as diamond traders and IT professionals.
But since the war on Gaza, recruiters have launched a drive to bring Indians in for Israel’s construction sector also.
Samir Khosla, chairman of Delhi-based Dynamic Staffing Services, which has sent about 500,000 Indians to work in more than 30 countries, has so far brought more than 3,500 workers to Israel, a new market for him.
Khosla himself arrived for the first time a month after 7 October, after the authorities urged for foreign workers in the construction industry, which ground to a halt when the Gaza war broke out.
“We didn’t know much about the market, and there wasn’t an incumbent workforce from India here,” Khosla said.
“We really had to move around and understand the needs,” he said, adding that he believed India was a natural choice for Israel given their “excellent relations”.
He now looks to bring in up to 10,000 Indian labourers, as he has a large pool of skilled Indian workers across all trades.
Long-term effects possible
In nearby Tel Aviv, a group of Indians live in a small flat where, in addition to the construction skills they brought with them, they have also learned to cook the familiar spicy dishes they miss from home.
“In a short time, one can earn more money” in Israel, said Suresh Kumar Verma, 39. Like Nishad, he is from India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh. Verma works on a construction site north of Israel’s commercial capital.
“Making money is also necessary… It’s important to continue working hard for the family’s future.”
Israeli researchers believe the number of Indians working in construction still does not match the number of Palestinians who did so before the war, and this is hampering the sector’s overall growth.
Before the war on Gaza, around 80,000 Palestinians were employed in construction, along with some 26,000 foreigners, Eyal Argov of the Central Bank of Israel said.
Now there are about 30,000 foreigners employed, far fewer than the previous overall workforce figures, he said, adding that activity in the current quarter of 2024 is about 25 percent below pre-war levels.
“These numbers (of Indians) are still very low,” Argov said.
While this does not create an immediate “shortage of housing, it may cause delays in the supply of new housing”, he said.
“Israel has a growing population, increasing by two percent annually, and this delay might lead to some shortage in the future.”
