Excerpts from an article in Hamodia.com:
No fewer than 95 percent of business owners believe that the government does nothing to help them — and most believe that government policies actually harm businesses. The data comes from a poll of more than 50,000 members of the Israel Small Business Association, mostly small-business owners, a report in Yisrael Hayom said.
Issues that slow productivity include complicated reporting requirements to tax agencies, the large number of forms and processes required to get a business license, and inefficiencies caused by excessive regulations. Laws that are supposed to benefit employees turn out to involve excessive bureaucratic rules, business owners said; for example, the Pensions Law, which requires all employers to provide a funded pension plan for full-time employees, is “a media-oriented production which does nothing to protect workers but increases the burden on employers,” 86 percent of employers said.
More than 70 percent of employers said that they had or will in the future fire employees because of the burdensome costs imposed by the bureaucracy, while 68 percent blamed a lack of growth on excessive regulations, which prevent them from reaching out to new markets. Ninety-seven percent said that if they had a choice, they would not remain in business for themselves, but would rather go work for someone else.
We explained why over here…