The imminent exit from the third closure, probably on Sunday, is expected to bring thousands of unemployed people back to their jobs in the coming week. However, data from the Employment Service published today (Thursday) show that already this week the ratio between the dismissed and those leaving the new Khalat and those who have already returned has decreased.
Thus, in the fourth week of quarantine for every ten registrants in the employment service, 1.3 job seekers returned to the labor force, while in the fifth week, the ratio almost doubled, with every 2.3 registrants returning to work 2.3 job seekers. Either way, it seems that the trend will be reversed as early as next week and more employees will return to work than go on vacation and be fired.
Holon Employment Bureau
(Photo: Kobi Cuenx)
An in-depth analysis conducted by Dr. Gal Zohar, Director of the Employment Service’s Research and Policy Department, on the employment data for the fifth week of the closure, which began on January 24, reveals two main trends: a consistent decrease in the number of new registrants and a change in the number of departures. Chalat along with a significant increase in the rate of layoffs, which was about to close at 18% in the fifth week compared to 15.4% in the week before.
“The decline in the number of registrants along with the increase in the ratio of returnees indicates that the economy is showing signs of recovery and returning to routine. At the same time, the increase in the number of redundancies reflects an alarming trend of rising jobseekers who may find it difficult to return to work.” R. Zohar.
While the average number of registrants in the first four weeks of the closure was 37,737, the number of registrants in the fifth week was 13,017, which is 34.5% of the average number of registrants in the four weeks preceding it.
According to Dr. Zohar, the third closure acts as two separate closures – before tightening the restrictions (27.12.20-7.1.21) and since tightening the restrictions (8.1.21 so far), with one of the salient features of the third closure being the high number of registrants in the first week of Each of the parts of closure and consistently decreases from week to week as one moves away from the beginning.
For example, in the first week of the first part of the closure 44,702 job seekers were registered while in the second week 29,779 and in the third week, which is the first week of the closure since the restrictions were tightened, 57,307 job seekers were registered and in the following weeks there was a consistent decrease to 19,136 and 13,017 in the fourth and fifth weeks. The second and third weeks of Part B of the closure), respectively.
The trend in the rate of dismissals can also be seen as the nature of the third closure as two separate closures – in the first week of closure, the rate of dismissals was 12% and in the second week their rate rose to 13%. In the third week, when the closure was tightened, the education system closed and in fact the second part of the closure began, the rate of layoffs dropped to 6.1%, while in the following two weeks (fourth and fifth since the closure, and second and third in the second part) it rose to 15.4% and 18%. Respectively.
The insight that in the last week the economy is showing signs of returning to routine is getting stronger when the ratio of returnees is divided by age groups. Thus, the ratio of returnees aged 34-55, the most important age group in the labor market, is 0.57 – for every 10 registrants in this age group 5.7 return to work, 2.5 times the general average. In contrast, among young people (up to 34) the ratio is 0.211, lower than average, a figure that is explained by the fact that many young people work in the sales, services, teaching, education and training industries, and as long as the restrictions on these industries have not been removed, their return rates are lower.
In addition, a gender segmentation shows that the rate of recurring registrations of women (0.197) is significantly lower than that of men (0.267) and, compared with Jews and Arabs, this ratio of Jews (0.25) is twice as high as that of Arabs (0.139). Geographically, the return ratio in Haifa (0.274), in Tel Aviv (0.267), in the south (0.267) and in the center (0.228) is significantly higher than in Jerusalem (0.154) and in the north (0.203), which are also lower than the general average (0.23).
Segmenting the return ratio by occupation, shows that the highest ratio was recorded in academic occupations (0.425, we were 4.25 returning to work for every 10 registrants), clerks and office workers (0.362 – one circular versus three registrants) and practical engineers and technicians (0.314). On the other hand, as expected, the return ratio of sales and service employees is lower than average and stands at 0.166, given that this industry is still closed. However, it should be noted that they are not much further from the average re-enrollment ratio (0.23), which could again indicate signs of a return to the economy’s routine.
The report also shows that in the fifth week of the closure, the proportion of young people among jobseekers was over 50% and even rose slightly compared to the previous week, 53.2% compared to 51.9%. In addition, for the first time since the closure, the proportion of women among new applicants Fell from 63.1% and stood at 59.1% in the fifth week, still much higher than the proportion of men, but this is a significant improvement compared to the fourth week (64.9%) and the third (75.8%) that preceded it.