Employees in the Tourism Sector in Jerusalem

The Jerusalem Employment Authority and the Jerusalem Municipality Department for Strategic Policy and Planning, in cooperation with the Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research, are holding a series of short meetings for municipal employees on the subject of employment in Jerusalem.

The objective of these short samplings is to facilitate municipal discourse in regard to the local economy and employment, accompanied by a light lunch. The format consists of a short 15-minute lecture focusing on a specific issue, followed by comments by a municipal executive, and a short discussion.

 The fifth meeting focused on:

Employees in the Tourism Sector in Jerusalem, in light of the COVID-19 Crisis

Omer Yaniv, Researcher, Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research

 Key points:

• At least 30,000 people are employed in the tourism sector in Jerusalem
• Salaries in the Tourism sector (hospitality and food and drink) are the lowest of all sectors in the economy.
• In Jerusalem, half the employees in this sector are aged 24 or less.
• Of the employees, 12% are students (compared to 4% among all employees in Jerusalem)
• Most of the employees are male.
• In hospitality services – 80% of the employees are Arab.
• In food and drink services – 67% of the employees are Jews or other non-Arab ethnic groups.
• Businesses in the hospitality and food and drink services have the lowest survival rate among all sectors of the economy.
• These businesses suffer the highest turnover rate (15% of all restaurants in 2019 were new)
• COVID-19 hit the hospitality and food and drink services branch the hardest (see the column by Jerusalem Institute economist, Netta Porzycki).

Impact of the crisis and possible solutions Regarding employees in the Tourism sector

Ilanit Melchior, manager of the Tourism sector in the Jerusalem Development Authority, commented on our findings. Melchior explained that the JDA offers training and support to the local tourism industry. Currently, all efforts are invested in internal tourism. This requires originality, thinking outside the box, and cooperation on the part of the government. According to Melchior, tourism in Jerusalem has overcome security crises in the past, and will surely overcome this crisis too.