Figures on the occupational structure of Israel’s population, published in the Statistical Bulletin of the Israel Bureau of Statistics and Economic Research, showed that the percentage of the population engaged in public and other services, including the liberal professions, and in trade and finance was higher in Israel than in any other country in the world, the New York Times reported today from Tel Aviv.
The report said that in Israel in 1951, 29.3 percent of all gainfully employed persons were in public and other services compared with 25.6 percent in Britain, (the next highest), 23 percent in the United States, 9.5 percent in Egypt and 20.4 percent in Switzerland. Trade and finance occupied 16.8 percent of all Israel’s gainfully employed, while the United States, with the next highest percentage in this category, showed 16.1 percent, Britain 12 percent, Egypt 7.5 percent and Switzerland 10 percent.
“There were 505,000 gainfully employed persons in Israel’s population of 1,346,000,” the report stated. “By deducting from the population 70,000 persons still in immigrants’ camps, the percentage of gainfully employed is 39.6. By January, 1952, the statisticians calculated, the number of gainfully employed had risen to 530,000.
“In most countries so high a proportion of persons engaged in services and in trade and finance would indicate a highly developed economy. In Israel, however, the high proportion is a reflection of occupational maldistribution–a maldistribution that Jewish organizations have for decades been struggling to rectify by fostering vocational training leading to employment in agriculture, industry and crafts in Israel,” the Times report commented.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
