chairman of the Histadrut, Arnon Bar-David: "The minimum wage in Israel should be raised to NIS 6,000

"The minimum wage in Israel should be raised, with my ambition being to gradually raise it to NIS 6,000, and now I'm starting to talk about it." This is what the chairman of the Histadrut, Arnon Bar-David, said at the May 1 conference of the Berl Katzenelson Foundation.
Bar-David said this in response to a question from the fund's director general, Rami Hod, who asked what needs to be done to strengthen the welfare state in Israel. But the obvious question is not whether it is worth raising the minimum wage, but when is the right time to do so.
"The minimum wage should be raised while there is full employment, not while unemployment is high and employers are still licking their wounds from the corona," explains Prof. Omar Moav, an economics lecturer at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya and the University of Warrick in the UK. The problem with raising the minimum wage during a recession, he said, is that it could deter employers (mostly small and medium-sized) from hiring more workers, thus hurting employers' pockets and delaying unemployment.
"I am not against raising the minimum wage, but raising it while we want to get the economy back on track, encourage people to start businesses and help business owners get back to work - it is unlikely that this will burden them. While there is growth and highs the minimum wage should be raised, no Now, "says Moab.
A study conducted by the chief economist at the Ministry of Finance in 2018, after the last minimum wage increase at the end of 2017, showed that the move did not hurt employment, and that it had a positive effect on the average wage in high-wage companies. Despite this, the expected difference between the results of the recent minimum wage increase and the one currently on the table is clear, since today the economy is in recession and the level of unemployment is particularly high. Furthermore, a study conducted in 2018 also stated that it cannot be ruled out that the increase in the average wage following the increase in the minimum wage is partly due to the dismissal of the weakest workers, in a way that artificially raises the average wage of the remaining workers. In a reality where most of the occupational injury has focused on workers from the weaker sections, such a move may, in particular, hurt them.