The declared aim of the Israeli government, since 1996, was to reduce radically the presence in Israel of foreign overseas workers within five years. This aim has not been achieved due to a counteracting policy: yielding to strong political pressure, the government introduced regulations that virtually indentured legal overseas foreign workers indefinitely to their employers. This depressed their wages and transformed their employment into a source of easy gains, greatly increasing the demand for them and encouraging legal workers to turn illegal. As a result, their numbers have not declined significantly, even though the Israeli economy has been on a downtrend, most of the time, since 1997.
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