Government

South Korea's parliament approved a trade agreement with Israel and it is expected to enter into force in December. This is Israel's first free trade area agreement with an Asian country. With the entry into force of the agreement, mutual tariff reductions will apply to imported and exported products, alongside the improvement and facilitation of trade in a variety of other areas such as services, investments, and standardization. The agreement will give Israeli companies a competitive advantage in the Korean market and is expected to increase and diversify Israeli exports to Korea, as...

The Ministry of Finance announced that the committee for examining Israeli food standards reached agreements regarding the cancellation and modification of the standards. In recent months, the committee examined the Israeli food standards, and its goal was to balance as much as possible the Israeli regulation in the field of food with that practiced in other developed countries, thereby facilitating both the import of food to Israel and its local production in the Israeli food industry. According to the announcement of the Ministry of Finance, the standards that will be canceled will...

The rate of population growth in Israel is harming the attempt to improve the education system. Between 2012 and 2019, the budget of the Ministry of Education increased by 67%, but the increase in the number of students eroded the increase so the budget per student increased by only 21%. This is according to the annual education report of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) published today (Monday) and referring to the 2019 budget data

The representatives of the state and the teachers' union signed the new employment agreement with the teachers' union on the night between Wednesday and Thursday, which will include, among other things, an increase in teachers' salaries already now and a change in the vacation schedule starting next year

The Orcam company founded by Amnon Shashua and Ziv Aviram is laying off 62 employees, most of them in Israel. The company, which was founded in 2010, distributed hearing letters before layoffs to 62 employees, who make up 16% of the company in Israel. The company did not respond. Recently, the company underwent a significant change when Amnon Shashua, one of the founders of the company, stepped down from the position of CEO and transferred the position to Elad Zarfati, who worked with him at Mobilay. Zarfati led a significant reorganization plan as part of a response to changes in world...

The unemployment rate decreased slightly in September, along with the typical decrease for the summer months and holidays in the employed rate. However, relative stability has recently been maintained in the field of unemployment in Israel and it continues to be low to a similar extent as it was on the eve of the Corona crisis. The data of the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) published on Monday shows that the basic unemployment rate in Israel, according to international definitions, reached 3.9% in September, which is 172.8 thousand unemployed - about 7,200 less than in August, when the...

On Thursday, Prime Minister Yair Lapid will bring to the government's approval a horizontal cut in the state budget for 2023, in order to finance the salary agreement with the Teachers' Union - after it became clear that the agreement was illegal. The agreement was signed without finding a budgetary source to finance it, at a cost of NIS 4.5 billion per year

Winter time will begin tonight on October 30, 2022, Thursday in Sheshon Tashpag, the night between Saturday and Sunday. At 2:00 in the morning the hands must be moved back one hour to 1:00. With this, summer time will end, which lasts 219 days this year. Winter and summer time were determined according to the latest version of the "Time Law" from 1992, which was amended in 2013. The law states that "every year, during the period from the Friday before the last Sunday of March at 2:00 a.m. to the last Sunday of October at 2:00 a.m., the time in Israel will be advanced by one additional...

According to the election results as of this hour (Wednesday), only 2,459 votes separate the Netanyahu bloc from the Lapid bloc, while the right-wing parties led by the Likud currently win 65 mandates and the other parties only 55. It should be noted that the number is not final, and may change with the counting of the duplicate envelopes. The small numerical gap between the blocs compared to the apparent gap in the distribution of seats in the Knesset stems from the percentage of obstruction, and from the fact that the right-wing bloc was maximally organized, while the center-left bloc...

The Water Authority Board announced today (Thursday) that it is putting to a public hearing the increase in water rates for domestic consumption by approximately 3.5% starting in January 2023, among other things following a sharp increase in electricity prices and a 2% increase in the price index. This is alongside the increase in investments in the water sector in Israel. A final decision will be made in December. According to the proposal, the rate for a known quantity (the low rate) will be NIS 7.874 per cubic meter from January (instead of NIS 7.608 per cubic meter) and the rate for...