The coronavirus lockdown has led Israel to a second peak in unemployment and almost 1 million people are jobless, according to areport issued by the Israeli Employment Service on Sunday.
The report said that during September, women and young people were more likely to file for unemployment at rates higher even than during the first lockdown period.
Since July, there has been a steady increase in the number of new unemployed Israelis relative to those returning to work. However, the number of people who registered with the Employment Service in September increased by 205,000, with only slightly over 25 thousand returning to work.
While September unemployment figures were three times higher than the numbers who registered in August, they were still significantly lower than the peak of 850,500 monthly unemployed registered in March, at the beginning of the first wave.
Unemployment numbers shot up after Rosh Hashanah (September 17) and peaked in the fourth week of September, when more than half the month’s unemployment requests were filed.
According to the report, by the end of September, the number of unemployed Israelis had reached 944.5 thousand – an increase of 20.9% compared to the end of August (781,300).
The number of unemployed registered for “unpaid leave” rose to 612,600, 64.9%, of all registered jobless people at the end of September.
The services and sales sector has been worst hi by the latest lockdown (35.4% of all unemployed), more than in August (23.3%) and higher than the first lockdown in March, (27%).
Sales and services includes teachers’ assistants and store assistants, waiters, security guards and others. They accounted for 20.8% of all those registered.
The business sector (trade executives, CEOs, restaurant owners, sales and marketing executives, etc.) has also been clearly affected and it registered its highest monthly unemployment rate since the beginning of the crisis, at 9%.
Female unemployment in September (62.7%) was even higher than in March (57.1%) and the report suggested that this may be because many women work in education, although it could also be because more women have been forced to care for children while distance-learning.
The rate of unemployment in the youngest age group (up to age 24) jumped from 17.1% of March enrollees to 20.5% of September enrollees – the highest figure for this group since the beginning of the crisis.
Beyond this, the distribution of registrants by age in September was similar to the distribution in March, and overall, the rate of jobless young people up to age 34 was 49.5% in September, compared to 47% in March.
The report said the high number may be because young people work in both the retail and hospitality sectors.
The rate of layoffs in the second wave has been higher than during the first wave (10.2% compared to 7.4%, respectively).
The city most affected by the lockdown was, again, Eilat that is heavily reliant on tourism, where a 16.6% rise in unemployment requests was registered. Although the resort city tops the unemployment chart with 39.3%, it is still low, compared to the nearly 70% unemployment rate that it registered during the peak of the first wave.
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