The unemployment rate in June fell to 2.8% of the total working population

The extended unemployment rate remained unchanged from May at 4%, or about 180,000 people. The employment rate of the population aged 15 years and older increased by 0.6 percentage points to 60.4%.

The official unemployment rate, which includes only those who were actively looking for work and were not employed, was 2.8% in June, or about 128,000 people, down 0.1 percentage point from May.

The expanded unemployment indicator includes: persons looking for work but not finding one; workers temporarily absent from work due to economic downsizing (mainly on unpaid leave); workers who were laid off within the last two years and stopped looking for work.

The number of workers on unpaid leave (“hufsha lelo tashlum”, HALAT) decreased from 19,100 in May to 17,100 in June. The number of workers laid off over the past two years and not looking for work decreased from 26,500 to 24,500.

The number of so-called “discouraged” job seekers – people who said they want to work and have been looking for work in the last year but did not search in the weeks leading up to the survey – fell from 14,500 in May to 13,400 in June.