The usual economic tread in Israeli society used to be: native-born Jews as top-earners followed by immigrants from the former Soviet Union and finally the Arab Israelis. But that reality has been changing since 2000 mainly thanks to Ethiopian immigrants. Due to that the bottom place used to be occupied by Arabs is now assumed by Ethiopia immigrants. This is according to an Israeli study based on earnings data for people with 12 years of schooling or less shows that Ethiopian immigrants without work experience have taken over Arab Israelis for the title of the lowest-earning group in Israeli society, reports Haaretz. The research found that, Ethiopian immigrants earn 30% to 40% less than Arabs with the same number of years of schooling. After 17 years of work experience, Ethiopians manage to pass their Arab counterparts. Ethiopian women start out earning Arab women after 20 years, while Ethiopian men pass Arab men after 10 years. The study also found that an Arab Israeli gets better return than an Ethiopian immigrant, for comparable secondary education. However, the study also found that for every year of experience, an Ethiopian immigrant earns more than an Arab. Meaning Ethiopian immigrants may need opportunity to prove what they are capable of providing to the economy. This issue also varies on gender line, in which Ethiopian women were slower to catch up with their Arab counterparts due to the difficulty surrounding Ethiopian finding work.

The main reason being the numerical superiority Arabs have over Ethiopians. Opportunities directly related to the size of the community, in which the larger the community the better the opportunity. While there are 1.5 million Arab Israelis, there are only 140,000 Ethiopians. Thus, Arabs can employ each other. Ethiopians, in comparison, cannot rely on their community connections in order to find jobs, simply because there are fewer jobs available within the community. The other obstacle immigrant face is cultural, which seems to minimize with large immigrant community. The research, however, didn't prove that Ethiopians faced more discrimination than Arabs. But employers of Ethiopian workers slowly discover, after the workers have proven themselves and the employers are no longer afraid to have them on staff, that it's not that bad. They advance and start earning more.