The number of police officers resigning is on the rise, due to low wages and difficult work, Yediot Aharonot reported.
According to data accessed by Yediot Aharonot, since the Finance Ministry signed an agreement on police officers’ wages, 101 offers have resigned – all of them during May 2022.
The number represents a record high, and the situation is only expected to worsen: 71% of those who resigned did so due to low wages, and Police Commissioner Yaakov Shabtai is fighting with the Finance ministry to raise officers’ salaries and improve their work conditions.
“The resignation of over 100 police officers in a month is the equivalent of an entire police station closing down,” a senior police official said.
- From January until May of this year, the Southern District saw the resignation of 90 police officers and the recruitment of 78; in the Coastal District, 85 officers resigned and 50 were recruited.
- In the Central District, the situation is even worse: 116 officers resigned, and only 61 joined the police forces. In northern Israel, which is constantly battling crime in the Arab sector, 78 officers resigned and 47 were recruited. In the Tel Aviv District, 108 officers resigned, and 58 were recruited. In the Traffic Department, 40 officers resigned and just 17 others replaced them.
Yediot Aharonot was also able to access three payslips from patrol officers who recently joined the police out of a feeling of mission.
Each of them earns a net 6,700 NIS [1937 USD] per month.
“I enlisted out of a feeling of great mission, but with a salary like this, I won’t be able to last for too long,” one of them said.
“I am married with children who I need to support, and it’s very hard to fulfill our financial obligations, not to mention the exhausting work of being a police officer.”
Source: Arutz Sheva