Haredi employment

With regard to “Number of Haredim in workforce declines” (February 7), statistics can be used to validate any point one wants to make, in this case, concerning stipends.

A shift of 2.7% is too small to show a trend. Possibly, the increase in the number of Haredi men in the working population is actually higher, but the percentage is less due to the gross increase in the number of Haredi men. If the figure that I have seen, of 4% growth per annum in working-age population, is correct, then we actually have an increase in the number employed.

Maybe more Haredim are becoming self-employed and this is not reflected in the figures. When this self-employment is part of the underground economy (I see it referred to in various articles as a “shadow economy”) in the community, the statistics are even more meaningless.

This is a self-supporting community. One family runs a nursery school, another sells pizza from home or offers catering services. Estate agents are another aspect. So is “informal” carhire or taxi services. Whatever the activity, there is usually a macher in the community, someone who knows how to get things done, to take care of it.

We in the non-Haredi community totally underestimate the dynamics of this society. The same case could be equally used for other population groups. In my part of the country, I have come