The clothing stipend, or dmei bigud in Hebrew is not a labor law, and thus not all employers are liable to pay it. There are several ways in which an employer can pay the clothing stipend:
1) In the public sector (government, municipalities, police, career army, etc) it is paid as an annual payment via the payslip. In 2010, for example, the amount was 1,961 shekels for a full-time position.The amount is added to the gross pay, usually in July. And the amount is updated each year to compensate for the rise in the consumer index.
2) There are certain sectors of industry that need special work clothes. These need to be provided by the employer as long as employer-employee relations exist. The employer can provide the employee with the clothes or a voucher to purchase them. The industries that need to provide clothing were incorporated into a collective agreement signed by the minister of labor, making it mandatory in those sectors.
In short, it is a very nice perk, one of many social benefits that most employees in Israel do not receive, unless they work in the public sector or in an industry covered by the collective agreement.
Moshe Egel-Tal, CSPP
Founder and CEO, Israpay "making payroll simple"
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