Capital Market

Israel's public debt soared in 2021, in absolute terms, and crossed the NIS 1 trillion mark. However, in the main index for examining Israel's financial strength, the debt-to-GDP ratio in the economy has improved, and it dropped from 71.7% in 2020 to 70.3%. The Accountant General of the Ministry of Finance, Yahli Rotenberg, published today (Wednesday) the preliminary debt data for 2021. They show that the improvement in the debt-to-GDP ratio was recorded mainly due to the increase in GDP in the economy in 2021, in light of the economic recovery. The published figure was determined by the...

Less than two years after the outbreak of the corona crisis in Israel, for the first time, the basic number of unemployed in Israel fell below the level that was on the eve of the spread of the plague. In the first half of January this year, there were only 148.3 thousand unemployed in Israel, which is 3.5% of the labor force. This is compared to 160,000 unemployed and 3.8% unemployment at the beginning of 2020. The Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) reported on Monday that the broad unemployment rate, which includes the unemployed due to Corona-related causes, did not fall in the first...

Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Prime Minister Naftali Bennett present their new economic plan. At the center of the program are two significant steps: tax cuts for those who earn up to the level of the average wage in Israel and the second step - a new compensation outline for self-employed people who were injured during the Omicron crisis. The cost of the program is estimated by the Treasury at NIS 4 billion in terms of loss of revenue. The core of the plan is, as mentioned, a reduction in taxes on work for those who earn low wages and a reduction in caps. Prime Minister Naftali...

The Ministerial Committee for Legislation approved in a telephone poll between the ministers the amendments to the legislation agreed as part of the package deal in the economy. Among other things, under the program, the minimum wage will gradually increase to NIS 6,000 by the end of 2025 in five installments. On April 1 this year, the minimum wage in Israel will rise to NIS 5,400. The increase is less than 2%, while in 2021 inflation was measured at 2.8% in Israel and since the beginning of the year there have been further increases, such as property taxes, fuel and electricity. The next...

Matthias Korman, Secretary General of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), arrived at a cabinet meeting in Jerusalem today and presented a presentation to the Prime Minister and government ministers on the impact of the corona on the Israeli economy. In the presentation, data were presented to the ministers, according to which the increase in employment in the past year was higher than the average of the other OECD countries. So while the employment rate for ages 25-64 in Israel is about 75%, the average in the member states of the organization is about 70%....

The Knesset's Economics Committee on Tuesday discussed the severe damage to the self-employed during the Omicron wave, with the Ministry of Finance refusing to approve a compensation plan for the self-employed at this stage. The meeting is also attended by Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman. He said, "Within two weeks we will agree on a safety net for the self-employed. It will probably also involve changes in legislation. We do not intend to abandon anyone. Anyone who needs assistance will receive assistance." The finance minister explained that on February 25, after the business...

The number of job seekers is declining, and is very close to the levels recorded on the eve of the Corona crisis. This is according to the Employment Service report for January 2022 published on Tuesday. According to the report, in January the number of jobseekers active in the employment service was 168.8 thousand, very close to 164 thousand registered in February 2020. In fact, this is the lowest number since The outbreak of the crisis. The data of the Employment Service actually correspond with the Central Bureau of Statistics reports regarding January, according to which in January the...

After three days of fighting, Western countries have agreed to impose the most severe sanction on Russia: cut off (not all) Russian banks from the Swift system, the World Interbank Financial Communications Association. This means that funds will not be able to flow out of and into the Russian financial system. The decision was supported by the European Union, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and the United States, which initially opposed it. This is a very extreme step. The decision was made to take "drastic measures" against Russia. "We will make sure that these banks are...

A new era began tonight in the financial world. After a long period in which most countries around the world had a particularly low level of interest rates, the US Federal Reserve raised the interest rate from 0 to 0.25% - to 0.25% to 0.5%, for the first time since December 2018. Despite previous estimates that the war in Ukraine could delay interest rate hikes - high inflation, resulting from rapidly growing consumption as the Corona crisis subsided, overcame the war and led to the beginning of US interest rate hikes. The implication of raising interest rates tonight in the leading...

The ratio between the number of jobseekers and the number of job vacancies fell in February to 1.1, the lowest figure since 2009. This is according to the employment market pulse report of the employment service. This means that 1.1 employees applied for each position, and this ostensibly indicates the possibility of almost every employee finding a job. For comparison, at the beginning of 2021, about 12 job seekers competed for each vacancy. This is the best ratio since 2009, and much better than the one recorded in Israel on the eve of the crisis (1.7)