Finance Ministry reports moderate recovery in job market
Before the second lockdown, 17% of those on unpaid leave reported in August that they are expecting to return to their jobs. In October, that number dropped to 13%.
By HAGAY HACOHENUpdated: DECEMBER 13, 2020 18:31A BEGGAR in Jerusalem. 'People are falling very quickly and they are looking for help anywhere they can find it,’ says Leket’s founder and chairman Joseph Gitler.(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)Unemployment rates in October were half those recorded in April, the Finance Ministry reported Sunday.In a study that examined the effects of the second lockdown on the national labor market, the authors said with 740,000 Israelis, or 18.2%, out of work across the country in October, the situation was milder than expected.Education registered the biggest drop in unemployment rates between April and October, declining from 45% to 15%. Unemployment in healthcare services dropped from 34% to 13% and in transportation from 42% to 21%.Even the arts, a sector badly hit by the lockdown policy, reported better numbers, declining from 70% in April to 53% in October.The figures do not include 160,000 people who were not looking for work because of the COVID-19 crisis and were not counted by the Central Bureau of Statistics, the report said.As many COVID-19 restrictions were lifted in mid-October, unemployment dropped from 20.7% to 15.8% between the first and second halves of the month to reach 12.6% in November, meaning that 340,000 people returned to work.The authors warned that the pandemic had an impact on the motivation of those who are unemployed to seek work. Before the second lockdown, 17% of those on unpaid leave reported in August that they were expecting to return to their jobs. In October, that number dropped to 13%.Low-wage earners without higher education were the worst hit. Employment numbers for those without college degrees dropped 22%, compared with 10% for those who had one.Israelis seemed to have worked a similar number of hours despite a 13% decline in the number of employed persons. This was explained by many Jewish holidays falling on weekdays last year, which led many to take more time off to “bridge” the holiday into the weekend. It is also possible that more part-time workers were fired during the crisis than full-time ones.Between June and August, unemployment rates for men and women were roughly the same. During the first lockdown, the unemployment rate for women was 39%, compared with 30% for men.
The unemployment rate was 22% for Arab-Israeli men, 21% for Arab-Israeli women and 25% for haredi (ultra-Orthodox) men. Arab-Israelis might remain outside the workforce even when the crisis will be over, the authors warned.Young Israelis who are first-time homebuyers turned to the National Insurance Institute in great numbers to receive unemployment benefits, the NGO Mityaalim (becoming efficient) reported Sunday.Despite the support from the NII, average income among such couples dropped by 19.6% when one spouse became unemployed.Among the majority of the households examined, the couple in question did not earn more than NIS 20,000, and the salary of the person now unemployed consisted of half the family’s income.The study said 57,000 households of first-time homebuyers face such a situation, with the estimated figure of total mortgage payments in the market among that group at NIS 223 million.In an effort to prevent a collapse of the real-estate market, and the political fallout if normative families become homeless due to the lockdown policy, banks have extended mortgage deferrals for up to six months to those affected by the crisis.Mityaalim offers families affordable financial guidance to survive the coronavirus crisis.
