The unemployment rate in Israel in July fell to 2.8%, the Central Bureau of Statistics reports, down from 3.1% in June. This is a particularly low rate that has not been seen for many years. Unemployment last November, after seasonal adjustment, and the mass mobilization of army reservists at the start of the war, was initially set at 2.8% but subsequent revised figures raised it to 3%.
The latest low figures also stem from many Israelis still performing army reserve duty and who are not available for civilian employment. This creates employment demand and huge shortages in the workforce, which has also been reflected over the past year in a rise in real wages, despite the economic slowdown.
The percentage of Israelis aged 15 and older participating in the labor force remains almost unchanged at 63%, up from 62.9% last month. and the employment rate also rose slightly to 61.2% from 61%. The rate of those registered as employees, but absent from work due to reserve duty, is still high (9.4%), but significantly lower compared with the previous month (15.6%). For men, the number is even more extreme: 22.1% of the employees are absent due to reserve duty, down from 28.5% the previous month.
Reservists not all returned to work
The broad unemployment rate, which also includes those who have given up looking for work and employed people who were absent from work because they were put on unpaid leave, also fell from 4.8% in June to 4.4% in July.
These are particularly low rates, which support the rise in wages. The figures also include the return of some of the reservists to work, but this is still an artificially low rate, because almost 1 in 10 employees remain in the army reserves.