A new report published by the OECD criticizes the Israeli government's policy that increases budgets for ultra-orthodox educational institutions - a policy that, according to the organization - does not support the integration of this population into the employment market. The report was published Tuesday evening and brings together new policy recommendations designed to encourage growth in each of the organization's countries, including Israel.

The authors of the report wrote that "certain groups, especially the ultra-Orthodox and the Arabs, are underrepresented in the thriving high-tech sector, and are characterized by low employment rates, working hours and wages." In this context, it's worth noting that the budget additions to the ultra-Orthodox sector, are approved every week by the finance committee, with a significant portion of these amounts going to support the ultra-Orthodox educational institutions where core studies are not taught modern studies, thus making it difficult for those studying in them to integrate into the job market in the future.

OECD says Israel should remove subsidies for Yeshiva students to narrow the socio-economic gap

Netanyahu 'is going against his own economic ideology because of his political calculation – to preserve the coalition with the ultra-Orthodox,' @emmanuelnavon tells @benitalevin pic.twitter.com/VC7dJOLyjF

— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) October 3, 2023

As for gender equality, the findings of the report paint a bleak picture of the situation in Israel according to which Israel ranks second in the world in the wage gap between men and women in the employment market. According to the report, in 2019 the wage gap between men and women stood at more than 24% on average, when only in South Korea were these gaps higher. The OECD further recommends that the Israeli government lower import barriers to lower the cost of living.

The OECD further recommends increasing the state's investment in the education and child care budgets in the Arab sector, with the goal being to compare them to the budgets of schools with a similar socio-economic profile in the general sector.

The OECD is right. Not investing in the Arab sector will cause more tension, poverty, and lack of integration within our Israeli society. This will invariably contribute to violence and increase susceptibility to extremism amongst Arab Israelis.https://t.co/D7YW9C2WLc

— Emily Schrader - אמילי שריידר امیلی شریدر (@emilykschrader) October 3, 2023

The Chairman of the Finance Committee, MK Moshe Gafni, said in response to the report: "I invite the person who prepared this nonsense report to a confrontation, and I will tell him how the people of Israel, with thousands of years of exile, endured throughout the world with holocausts and troubles, and arrived in the Land of Israel thanks to the Torah scholars, the Gentile nations do not understand this!"

MK Ohad Tal from the Religious Zionism party, in response to the OECD report added: "The integration of the ultra-Orthodox sector in employment and academia is necessary and critical, both for the Israeli economy and for the well-being of ultra-Orthodox society. Along with the importance of learning the Torah, we must encourage those who seek to change and integrate into the market employment."