Israel's answer to outsourcing: Hiring Haredi women

In response to the overwhelming flow of jobs to India, Israel has started hiring hundreds of haredi women for mostly back office and programming projects.

"Global high-tech companies such as Comverse and Amdocs outsource today to India and Eastern Europe. This creates a big problem for unemployment in Israel. This project is a way of keeping work in Israel and one which provides an alternative to offshore outsourcing," says the VP for sales and marketing of Matrix Talpiot.

A year into the program, around 250 haredi women have been hired in development programming centers. This endeavor is supported with government subsidy that allots NIS 1,000 per employee for five years. As an example, a haredi company, Imagestore Systems, involved in electronic archiving services have brought in 100 local haredi women to deliver high quality yet lower-costing work. These fetch an average of NIS 5,500 monthly.

This is still higher than the hourly rates for Indians, but there are still other issues to contend with such as high turnover rates, travel costs, training allowances, and supervision and management concerns that arise when dealing with a foreign culture.

Why haredi women?

"Haredi women have no work experience. We provide them with the know-how at a [relatively] low basic income. Our experience has shown that they have a lot of potential. They are serious, very motivated to learn and trustworthy."

This has presented fresh opportunities for haredi women despite the call of the free market. Special attention have been paid to provide for the family-centered haredi women: rooms where women can pump breast milk, separate kitchens, and fixed employment hours.

related stories, by category: