The number of job vacancies in October fell by 2% to 54.5 thousand - compared to 100,000 in 2019

The number of job vacancies in October fell by 2%, from 55.5 thousand in September to 54.5 thousand; This is compared to about 100,000 vacancies at the end of 2019. This is according to data published by the Central Bureau of Statistics. The vacancy rate in October was 2.3%, compared with 2.32% in September. The low number of job vacancies is not just a result of the second closure: even in summer the number of job vacancies did not exceed 60,000. The slump in demand for workers is probably due to the uncertainty of the economy during the Corona period, Another factor is the very little government activity in job creation.
There has been an increase in demand for workers in the information and communication industries, as well as in the construction industry. Thus, in the field of information and communication, which includes high-tech, there was an increase of 10% - from 9,250 jobs to 10,150. The demand for workers in these areas is close - a difference of 9% - to the 2019 average, which stood at 13,300. In the field of construction, there was a 9% increase in demand, from 6,500 to 7,100, but the demand for workers is still far from the 2019 average of 9,500 jobs.
A 36% drop was recorded, as expected during the period of closure, in the trading areas - from 7,600 jobs in September to 4,900 jobs in October. In 2019, the average demand for trade workers was 13,500 - almost three times the demand in October. There was also a 30% drop in demand for hospitality and food workers, from 2,800 in September to 1,950 in October. The 2019 average was 14,750 jobs, which is 7.5 times.
Demand for engineers, including computer engineers, rose 19% in October from July-September to 8,100 jobs; Of these, 6,100 jobs are for software engineers, whose demand has increased by 25%.

The unemployment rate according to the expanded definition of the Central Bureau of Statistics fell in the second half of October following the opening of the closure to 18% which is 733,000 people. This is a decrease of close to five percent from the first half of October when it was still closed and the unemployment rate was 22.7% which is 938,000 people. It should be noted that at the beginning of September, the unemployment rate according to the extended definition was 11.5%, meaning that Israel is still far from even the very high rate of unemployment that prevailed between the two closures. This is according to unemployment data for the second half of October, published today by the Central Bureau of Statistics, based on the results of the Labor Force Survey.
 The CBS publishes three semi-monthly unemployment figures: The percentage of the unemployed (unemployed in the classic definition - people without a job looking for work) was 4.8% in the first half of October, compared with 5.1% in the first half of October. Are high and unexplained and therefore it is doubtful whether they should be addressed in the analysis of the number of people who do not have a job.
The percentage of unemployed plus missing persons each week surveyed from their work dropped from 20.7 %% in the first half of October to 15.8%, which is 629,000 people, in the second half. The definition of missing persons in each week of the survey from their work should locate those who are on unpaid leave. The unemployed plus the missing all week This is the narrowing figure through which the Ministry of Finance measures unemployment. When the figure reaches 10%, the level of unemployment benefits has dropped to 90%.
The CBS 'expanding figure includes the unemployed, people who were absent from work all week, and people who lost their jobs during the Corona period and are not looking for work. As mentioned, this figure dropped from 22.7% to 18%.
The CBS also published today the unemployment data for the entire month of October. But since monthly unemployment data are the average of the results of a survey conducted for the entire month, the monthly data include both the closure period and the exit from it and therefore teach much less than the semi-monthly data. Employed persons rose from 4.7% in September to 4.9% in October, while the percentage of unemployed and temporarily absent rose from 12.4% in September to 18.2% in October, and the unemployment rate gradually rose from 14.2% to 20.3%.