Twenty persons, including several policemen, were wounded in a riot this evening when police forcibly dispersed an estimated 1,000 jobless workers demanding jobs.
About 5,000 jobless workers took part in an orderly demonstration under sponsorship of workers committees and the Mapam Party. After the formal demonstration ended, the rioters made a dash for the municipality’s new glass-sheathed building and began hurling stones and shouting for work. Helmeted police waded into the rioters trying to disperse them.
Most of the wounded were released from a nearby hospital after receiving first aid but three persons, including one policeman remained in the hospital.
The number of unemployed workers in Israel in the last quarter of 1966 was about 99,000, slightly more than 10 percent of the total labor force, according to a manpower survey of the Central Bureau of Statistics published last night. The Bureau said the figure was made on the basis of a survey and not through the labor exchanges where many, but not all, Israeli jobless are registered.
Labor Minister Yigal Allon, speaking on the radio last night, gave a slightly lower figure of 96,000 persons “not working,” the same total he gave last month in a report to Parliament. The Labor Minister said 35,000 unemployed workers were registered in the labor exchanges. The Minister added a warning that another 10,000 workers would become jobless this summer when citrus picking ended and many young people completed their army service.
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