Two years since the outbreak of the Corona crisis and ahead of International Women’s Day, the Employment Service today (Monday) published data showing that as of the end of January, Women make up 51.9% of all job seekers And their number was 81,546. This number is 4.5% lower than the number of job demands registered in February 2020, on the eve of the outbreak of the corona crisis, which then stood at 85,394.
However, the employment service clarifies, the employment movements of women during the corona crisis indicate their weakness in the labor market. “Women were the ones who left the labor market on a larger scale at the entrance to and during the closures, but there were also those who returned to the labor force at a faster rate at the exit from the closures and between them.”
These movements, the employment service explains, stem from two main factors – the occupations that were more affected by the closures were those characterized by higher rates of women than men, as the sales, services and teaching industries that entered the closures were the first to be affected by the restriction policy.
In addition, with the closure of the education system, not only teaching facts were taken out to the Knesset, but also mothers who are not in the field of teaching, according to the data, went out on a larger scale from the work circle at the entrance to closures and during them to stay with children.
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Examining the distribution of active jobseekers at the end of January this year shows that 27.2% are young (up to 34), 32.9% are of primary working age (35-50) and 39.9% are older women (over 51).
Compared to the eve of the crisis, in February 2020, it appears that the number of non-Haredi Jewish women demanding work decreased by 11.25%, of Haredi women by 10.06% and of others by 4.37%, all the while the number of unemployed Arab women increased by 8.95 %, And stood in January 2022 at 28,683, representing 35.2% of all job demands.
In contrast to the situation on the eve of the crisis, when women from localities with a low socio-economic rating constituted a majority of 52.4% among job seekers, in January 2022 women from localities with a rating of 5 or higher constituted a majority of 50.4%.
However, Social Security data released earlier this week shows that Women are poorer than men With 23.1% of adult women (18+) being poor, compared to 18.2% of adult men. The number of women who were entitled to unemployment benefits in the past year was 180,607 compared to about 155,000 men.
Of the 182,998 maternity grants paid in 2021, 140,000 were for women, of which only about 10,000 were self-employed. Only 1,181 men took maternity leave.