Israel’s Employment Service has published a special report on workers who are repeatedly pushed out of jobs during emergency periods, especially since the war began in October 2023. The agency says these are not just similar people from similar backgrounds, but often the same individuals losing work again and again across the economic shocks of the past six years. The result, it warns, is cumulative damage to income, savings, social benefits and, likely, living standards.
The strongest patterns were found among women. According to the report, 71% of women laid off or removed from work during “Operation Rising Lion” had also been affected in at least one previous emergency in recent years. Half of those women had already been hit three or more times, and more than a third had been affected four times. Among personal caregivers, 78% had been affected in at least one additional emergency, and among sales workers the figure was 75%.
The Employment Service also identified repeated harm among workers under 34, because they are overrepresented in jobs that require being outside the home and facing the public, such as restaurants, retail and services, sectors especially exposed to Home Front Command restrictions during emergencies. Parents of children under 18, especially mothers, and ultra-Orthodox workers, particularly women in care and education, were also singled out as vulnerable groups.
The report says remote work reduces the risk of being forced out of the labor market during a crisis, but not equally for everyone. For parents of young children, especially mothers, that protection weakens when schools close and childcare falls mainly on the mother, even if she could theoretically work from home. The service is urging Israel to replace the broad emergency furlough system used in recent crises with more flexible options, such as part-time furlough with state wage補? assistance and a shared “couple furlough” that would let parents divide emergency leave between them. Employment Service director general Adv. Inbal Meshash said, “The repeated findings show there is no more room to wait for the next crisis. We must act now to reassess the existing safety nets and consider adopting advanced flexible furlough models.”
