Government

The state budget for 2021 and 2022 was approved in the first reading in the Knesset plenum: Three and a half years after the last budget was approved on March 15, 2018, on Thursday evening the Knesset plenum approved in the first reading the biennial state budget. 59 Knesset members voted in favor of the budget. 54 opposed the budget for 2021 and 53 opposed the budget for 2022. Earlier, the Knesset approved on first reading the Arrangements Law by a similar majority. MK Amichai Shikli on the right is absent from the vote. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said immediately after the approval...

Classrooms in Israel are more crowded, teachers pay is less than in the OECD, students study more hours and still fail to achieve better academic results than their peers in OECD countries in the meantime - according to the 21Education at a Glance 20 report published today (Thursday) on the OECD. According to the report, Israel ranks third in the OECD in terms of its investment in education as a percentage of GDP, but the gaps between it and other countries are still high. In terms of the positive points - this year Israel also excels in its level of education. Israelis are much more...

The US House of Representatives this evening (Thursday) approved by a majority of 420 supporters against nine to provide Israel with a total of $ 1 billion in aid for the purpose of equipping interceptors and Iron Dome batteries. The bill will go to a Senate vote and then pass to Biden for approval. The law has won support from all parts of the House - Democrats and Republicans. Of the few opponents, eight were Democrats - most of them progressives known for their opposition to American aid to Israel - and one Republican. Opposing Republican Thomas Massey explained on Twitter: "My 'no to...

A report by the Ministry of Finance reveals that there are too many teachers in Israel, and the worst ones are very difficult to fire. The average starting salary for teachers reached NIS 5,287 (gross) per month in 2020, according to data from the department in charge of salaries and employment agreements in the Ministry of Finance. This is a salary given in the average scope of work for beginning teachers (the salary for a full-time job is NIS 8,474, but beginning teachers are not employed full-time). Like other reports concerning the Israeli education system, the report of the...

About 26% of undergraduate students study computer science, including mathematics and statistics and engineering. This is the fourth year in a row that engineering studies are the most coveted study program in Israel. More than 38,000 students, which is 18.2% of the 208,461 undergraduate students, study engineering. This is according to the report of the Council for Higher Education ahead of the start of the academic year this coming Sunday. The report shows that engineering studies continue to overtake the social sciences, which for years have been considered the largest field of study in...

The shortening of the shifts of interns in hospitals is underway: On Tuesday evening, the Minister of Finance, Avgidor Lieberman, the Minister of Health, Nitzan Horowitz, and the Minister of the Economy, Orna Barbibai, agreed on an initial outline for shortening the shifts from 26 hours to 18 hours (16 plus 2). At this stage only for hospitals in the periphery (10 total) - and excluding professions of surgery. The interns - who do not accept the outline - plan to intensify the struggle and carry out a mass resignation from the hospitals today. "We are continuing our struggle. We will...

Industrial plants in Israel are in trouble. They are short of workers and have great difficulty recruiting skilled workers. According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, Israel's industry lacks 13,700 workers. The problem of shortage of workers in the industry is not new but increased during the Corona. Before the crisis, there was a shortage of 10,000 workers, which increased to almost 14,000. Many of the positions in the industry, at least a quarter of the missing workers, are positions on production lines, near furnaces or in the field of concrete castings. In these positions it is...

A large proportion of Israelis continue not to compromise in finding work, and thus the number of job vacancies in the economy has increased, rising in September to 137,487 women and men, compared with 133,835 job vacancies in August. The increase is also reflected in the vacancy rate of all jobs in the economy from 4.79% in August to 4.90% in September. This is according to data from the Central Bureau of Statistics. In the third quarter, there was a 6.7% increase in job vacancies compared to the second quarter, against the background of the broad opening of the economy in these months....

The Minister of Finance, Avigdor Lieberman, announced that he had instructed his ministry to formulate a bill to repeal the levy on the employment of foreign workers in the economy. According to Lieberman, the bill will be submitted immediately after the budget is approved - as early as 2021. The current law requires every employer of a foreign worker to set aside 15% of the worker's salary. The purpose of this duty was to reduce the incentives for employing foreign workers. Lieberman now intends to reverse the trend, on the grounds of lowering the cost of living. "Taxation on the...

Citizens paid NIS 3.6 billion that they did not have to pay to the tax authorities in the years 2013-2019. This is according to the State Comptroller's report published on Tuesday. The report also states that the Tax Authority did not act to correct the many deficiencies found in the previous report regarding the exercise of public rights in the tax field. The tax they deserve, so they did not use it and paid the state treasury more tax than the law obliges them, and moreover: the tax authority does not have the details of the bank accounts of half a million Israelis at all, who may very...