Israel Minister Reports on Unemployment; Says 36,048 Are Jobless

Israel’s Labor Minister Yigal Allon, addressing the 66th annual conference of the British Zionist Federation here last night, said that Israel’s unemployed, as of last week, totaled 36,048 persons. The figures, he said, included 3,800 youths, and represented 3 percent of Israel’s labor force.

Mr. Allon derided the “mass of conflicting figures” about Israel’s unemployment situation, noting that the percentage of Israel’s unemployed as a ratio of the country’s total labor force was similar to Britain’s. Incidentally, he said, Israel uses Britain’s statistical methods for arriving at its unemployment figures. “I am profoundly conscious,” he said, “of the suffering caused by unemployment, and I consider it my first duty as Minister of Labor to combat unemployment with all the means at my disposal.”

Asked why Israel continued to seek migrants under these circumstances, he said the Israeli problem was not one of over-population but the need to change to more productive forms of work. He predicted a serious shortage of professionals in the 1970’s if more migrants did not settle in Israel.

On the subject of Jewish immigration to Israel, Mr. Allon lauded the British Zionist Federation for launching a campaign to increase aliyah, and disagreed with the suggestions by “some people” who hold that Zionism “should gracefully withdraw” now that the State of Israel exists. Such formulation, he said, is “an over-simplification of a complex and delicate problem.” It is true, however, he added, that “Zionism without aliyah is meaningless; a Zionist organization cannot be considered Zionist if it does not constantly do all in its power to encourage and promote aliyah.”

Zionism, said Mr. Allon, is needed, and the movement should not be liquidated. “As Zionism was needed to secure the State of Israel,” he declared, “it is no less needed to fortify and to sustain the State.”