2022 began with the concerns surrounding the end of the period of eligibility for unemployment benefits given to the corona patients (November 2021), but ended with a sign of a consistent and significant decrease in the number of job seekers. Cumulatively, during 2022 the employment service assisted 419.2 thousand jobseekers – 260.8 thousand of them are unemployment claimants, 112.1 thousand are income support claimants and 46.2 thousand are jobseekers who did not claim any allowance but requested to receive relief back to work from the employment service.
The job placement percentages of the employment service increased by 32% compared to pre-corona crisis in 2019. The placement chances of the young jobseekers are still significantly higher than the older ones (the rate of placements among all jobseekers aged 18-34 and 35-50 was 18% and 19.1%, respectively, and only 7.7% among those aged 51 and over). The highest rate of job placement was recorded among non-Orthodox Jews (16.4% of job seekers who were placed in a new job) and the lowest among ultra-Orthodox (13.4%), although the most significant increase compared to 2019 was recorded among the ultra-Orthodox, an increase of approximately 43%.
106.2 thousand jobseekers, representing 25.4% of all jobseekers who were cumulatively registered with the employment service during 2022, participated in programs encouraging employment placement, three times more than in 2021 – 55.3 thousand underwent employment counseling (a 20% increase compared to 2021), 38.4 thousand participated In group workshops (an increase of 112%! compared to 2021) and about 20 thousand underwent occupational and educational diagnosis (an increase of 54% compared to 2021).
The CEO of the Employment Service, Rami Graor, calls this “a direct consequence of expanding the variety of the service, improving the service and increasing the professionalization of the professional level in the service” and says: “It is possible that this is also related to the growing understanding of the citizens of Israel to the fact that the labor market is changing and requires them to adapt and improve their skills to reintegrate into the workforce.”
Only 23% of all jobseekers aged 55 and over took part in the placement support programs, while among the main working age group (35-54) the rate of participants from among them was about 40% and among the young (up to 34) 37%. Beyond that, the proportion of adults was the lowest in any of the employment service programs. 24.3 thousand participated in “employment circles” activities, a figure that stands behind the very significant decrease in the number of income guarantee claimants (about 54 thousand in December 2022, the lowest in about two decades). About 58% of them are Arabs, a rate similar to their rate among income guarantee claimants, compared to only 5.3% who are ultra-Orthodox, even though their rate among income guarantee claimants is about 33%.