The Israel National Employment Service reported that 17,500 employees were fired in December 2008 compared with 10,400 in the corresponding month of 2007.
The Employment Service said that this is a record number of layoffs in one month. Employment Service director of Research and Economics David Tzarfati said, "There has never been anything like this before. In recent years the average monthly number of layoffs has been 10,000, so this time we are talking about an increase of 80%."
The number of jobseekers rose by 3% to 205,800 in December 2008 compared with the previous month. Further analysis of the figures shows that employees with degrees have been hit hardest by the layoffs with an 8.3% increase in December 2008 compared with the previous month.
The Employment Service observed that by far the largest number of new jobseekers is in the high-tech sector. For example, 690 software engineers were fired in December, compared with 318 in November, and an average of 100 in the preceding months.
A breakdown of the figures also shows that the locations worst hit by the layoffs were the Dan region with 5,900 layoffs, the northern region with 4,000 layoffs and the Valleys (Afula region) with 3,900 layoffs.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on January 25, 2009
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