The Israeli Cabinet on Sunday approved a decision to issue temporary licenses enabling new immigrants to work in their professions immediately on arrival in the country, the Ministry of Aliyah and Integration announced.
The move comes amid a groundswell in immigration in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks in southern Israel and the antisemitic violence the invasion from Gaza triggered around the world.
The decision will apply to lawyers, accountants and teachers, starting on Oct. 1, in an effort to boost immigration, a ministry spokesman told JNS.
It is expected to affect tens of thousands of immigrants each year, and save state coffers 1.5 billion shekels (around $400 million) over a decade, the ministry said.
“This is a revolutionary and very important decision for new olim,” Minister of Aliyah and Integration Ofir Sofer said. “Integrating olim into employment will help them settle in more easily and strengthen the Israeli economy.”
About 25% of immigrants from Western countries work in professions requiring licensing, according to data from the ministry and the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics.
The regulatory and bureaucratic barriers faced by immigrants to Israel until now have been among the highest in the world, with the licensing process taking an average of one and a half to two years, according to the ministry.
“Many professionals can currently move from France to England or from Germany to the Netherlands without issue, but when they make aliyah to Israel, they sometimes have to go through unjustified stages,” said Avichai Kahana, director general of the ministry.
“This makes it difficult for olim to earn a respectable living, and moreover, it is a tremendous loss to the state’s treasury, including in professions that are severely lacking in the economy.”
Since Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre, some 22,000 people have immigrated to Israel, according to figures from the Jewish Agency and the Aliyah and Integration Ministry.
There has been an increase of more than 500% in interest in immigration from France over the last nine months with nearly 6,500 people opening case files compared to a little more than 1,000 in the same period the previous year.
As many as 2,000 North Americans are expected to immigrate to Israel this summer, while there have been more than 10,000 requests to open aliyah files in North America, an increase of more than 75% from the same period a year earlier.
