Articles by December, 2022

Senior officials in the high-tech industry called on the future Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday evening not to allow the enactment of the laws discussed in the last days in the Knesset, due to its "devastating" consequences for the economy and the high-tech industry in particular. According to them, "the undermining of confidence in the Israeli justice system and, as a result, in Israeli democracy, may discourage the investors who drive the growth of the industry." "Legal stability is a necessary condition for international investors and helps them invest in certain...

The slowdown in the economy has also reached the number of vacancies which continues to decrease and with it, the demand for high-tech people also drops. The number of vacancies decreased from 144,700 in October to 141,200 in November (seasonally adjusted data). This is a decrease of nearly 10,000 jobs from the record of 151,400 last April. Particularly affected was the demand for software engineers (programmers), which fell by 45% from last March

A slowdown in the pace of residential construction starts. According to data from the Central Bureau of Statistics, in the third quarter of 2022 (July to September), the construction of 14,675 apartments began. This is a decrease of about 5% compared to the corresponding quarter in 2021 when the construction of 15,482 apartments began. Compared to the second quarter of 2022 when the construction of 17,293 apartments began, this is already a 15% drop in the rate of construction starts. In fact, the figures for the third quarter of 2022 are the lowest recorded since September 2021

In the Histadrut, they started protest measures throughout the country and at the same time called on the next government to act unequivocally on the cost of living. Liat Ron and Aryeh Malinyak spoke with the chairman of the Histadrut, Arnon Bar David, who shared why they acted this way, and how they will act in the future in order to affect the pockets of all of us

The Plenum of the Electricity Authority decided on Wednesday to increase the price of electricity by another 8.2% starting in another week and a half. This means that the average electricity bill of a household will rise from next month by about 80 shekels for two months - and about 480 shekels a year. The discussion was held due to a series of appeals submitted by organizations and bodies in the economy regarding the Authority's decision from a few weeks ago to increase the price of electricity in Israel by another 8.2%, but this time the Authority rejected all appeals and left the price...

Six years after the police investigation was opened against Benny Steinmetz and businessmen Avi Lev-Ran and Michal Noy on suspicion of bribing senior government officials in Guinea in exchange for mining rights worth billions of dollars, it ends today with a comprehensive settlement - on the criminal and tax levels. According to the overall settlement, the prosecutor's office will not file an indictment against the three, in exchange for a civil forfeiture of NIS 23 million from Lev-Ran, Noy and another company. Steinmetz's share of the settlement will amount to NIS 17 million.

After a long and tedious process, which included going through and debating every comma and line of the 4,155-page document, the US House of Representatives joined the Senate in approving next year's US budget of $1.7 trillion on Friday. Members of Congress entered a frantic last-minute race to pass the budget Before Christmas, while the storm winds are raging outside and across the US the lowest temperatures have been recorded in years

Israeli exports are expected to break a record this year and cross a threshold of 160 billion dollars - according to a forecast published by the Ministry of Economy. If the forecasts come true, the rate of increase in exports will be higher than 10% compared to 2021, which also recorded a record in Israeli exports. The Ministry of Economy says that the forecast for Israeli exports of $160 billion is conservative and that if the rate of growth in exports in the fourth quarter of this year is similar to the growth in exports in the first three quarters of 2022, it is possible that the volume...