Israel’s Surprising Answer to a Looming Talent Shortage
With a population almost entirely constituted by theocratic-minded haredim and subjugated and resentful Arabs, the Israel of the near future will most likely collapse like the unsustainable experiment it has always been.”
..or at least so says one pessimist. The argument goes that Israel is reaching the end of a talent boom that began in the early 1990s when the Soviet Union collapsed and a million plus Soviet Jews fled to Israel.
Par contre, the Economist this week suggests that Israel’s future may be bright. Unlike the ageing and slowly depopulating Western countries already facing the specter of death panels, Israel will benefit from its economically unproductive yet procreative religious conservatives. The trick will be getting them back to work.
I’ve had long discussions with haredim friends as to whether their communities could or would eventually reintegrate back into the world of work. One argument goes that they won’t because they’ve largely avoided education in the sciences required of knowledge workers.
The opposite argument is that the nature of work is changing so fast that those disciplines become less relevant every day.
Given the need, they will adapt to work just fine.
