Jobless Rate Dips Again

The unemployment rate in Israel registered another drop in August, of 0.1 percent to 4.6 percent, the Central Bureau of Statistics announced on Thursday.

The CBS said there were 3,932,000 people age 15 and over in the labor force in August, of whom 3,752,000 were employed and 180,000 unemployed. The employment rate in this age bracket fell from 61.4 percent in July to 61.2 percent in August.

The number of those with full-time employment dipped 0.3 percent, compared with July (during the week in which the survey was conducted), while the number of those with part-time employment (less than 35 hours per week) was up 1.7 percent, compared with July.

Israel uses the standard OECD criteria to compile its figures, defining an employed person as one who worked at some job at least one hour during the past week. An unemployed person is defined as one who did not work at all, but actively looked for work during the four weeks preceding the survey date.

The Central Bureau of Statistics calculates the official unemployment rate by dividing the number of unemployed by the number of active participants in the labor force, which equals the number of employed plus the number of unemployed.

According to a broader definition, the unemployment includes those actively searching for employment, plus those who have given up looking for employment; and those involuntarily working only part-time. If those criteria were used, the unemployment rate would be greater than 10 percent.