Sarit Cohen-Goldner

Labor Mobility of Immigrants: Training, Experience, Language and Opportunities

This Paper analyses the labour mobility and human capital accumulation of male immigrants who moved from the former Soviet Union to Israel. We formulate an estimable dynamic choice model for employment and training in blue and white-collar occupations, where the labour market randomly offered opportunities are affected by past choices. The estimated model well fits the observed patterns of the fast decrease in unemployment as immigrants first find blue-collar jobs and attend training, followed by a gradual movement to white-collar occupations. The estimated rates of return to local training, local experience and local language are very high, but imported skills have zero (conditional) return. Furthermore, the welfare gain from the impact of training on job offer probabilities is larger than its effect on wages. Due to low job offer rates, the realized rate of return from white-collar training is relatively low and takes time. As a result, the annual aggregate wage growth, due to the availability of training programs, increases with time in Israel to 1.4% in the fifth year.

Immigrants in the Israeli Hi-Tech Industry: Comparison to Natives and the Effect of Training

During the 1990s, the Israeli economy experienced two major events. First, starting in the fall of 1989, a large wave of relatively highly skilled immigrants arrived from the former Soviet Union (CIS) increasing the population and the labor force by considerable magnitude. Second, the hi-tech sector has grown substantially and reached a peak in growth and level in 2000. This paper provides a descriptive analysis of the integration of immigrants from the CIS in the Israeli labor market and, specifically, in the hi-tech sector. Based on a unique panel data that follows immigrants for up to 12 years in Israel we find a significant positive correlation between immigrants’ participation in Israeli government-provided training programs and the propensity to work as professionals in the hi-tech industry and to work in white-collar occupations in other sectors. However, this correlation diminishes with ‘time since participation’ such that recent participants face a higher probability to work in hi-tech and white-collar jobs than those who participated in training earlier.

Immigrants in Israel

Abstract Israel perceives the immigration of Jews as one of its major goals and thus it applies no selection rules towards them. Jewish immigration to Israel hailed from Arab countries as well as European countries. While immigration has shaped the rate of growth of Israels Jewish population it has also created socio-economic diversity within the Jewish population. The great range of geographical origins and cultural backgrounds of immigrants make the study of the determinants and the consequences of immigration particularly interesting and there is a comprehensive literature on various aspects of Jewish immigration. Although traditionally immigration to Israel used to refer to immigration of Jews, since the early 1990s a substantial number of low-skilled temporary foreign workers entered the country. In addition, the phenomenon of asylum seekers who enter the country also expanded in the last decade. While immigration policy legislation towards Jewish migrants was formed soon after its independence, Israel still lacks a coherent immigration policy towards labor migrants and asylum seekers.