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Palestine Takes Men from Cities to Soil

November 24, 1933
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Plans are being worked out here to defer constructional and public works of secondary importance in order to release workers for urgent agricultural labor. The Central Employment Bureau of the Histadruth Haovdim is seeking the cooperation of employers throughout the colonies in the effort to take workers from the city to the country.

The shortage of Jewish workers has become a pressing problem. Newly-arrived immigrants are given employment at once but the demand cannot be completely met, according to Davar, Hebrew daily. The most serious situation exists in the plantations colonies, where vital farm jobs cannot be carried out for want of labor. In many places saplings removed from nurseries for transplanting in the groves are actually decaying for lack of attention.

In the urban building trades there exists a similar problem. Tel Aviv reports lack of skilled craftsmen and artisans, including builders, plasterers, tilers and locksmiths. The setback in building is causing congestion in residential neighborhoods. Carpenters, upholsterers, tinsmiths, locksmiths, metal founders, ironworkers, mechanics, loomhands and leather-workers are dismally absent.

Forty dwellings in Haifa are standing uncompleted. Roads have been abandoned because of the labor shortage.

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