A special report by Israel’s Employment Service found that most people who leave the labor market during the “Lion’s Roar” crisis also exited at least one other emergency event over the past six years. The report says the pattern is especially pronounced in jobs that rely on public interaction, outdoor work, and gatherings.
Among the hardest hit occupations, 78% of personal care workers and 75% of sales workers were among those pushed out of work. The report also found that 71.3% of all women who were removed from the labor force during the “Lion’s Roar” crisis had also been displaced in at least one additional emergency in the previous six years, and half had been affected by at least three other emergency events.
The Employment Service said this is not random. It attributed the pattern to the fact that, in normal times, young workers are heavily concentrated in leisure, culture, entertainment, and sales, while women are overrepresented in care, sales, and face-to-face reception jobs, and Haredim, especially Haredi women, are concentrated in care and education. When crises begin and gatherings and movement outside are restricted, these groups are more likely to appear among new job seekers.
The agency added that recovery speed depends not only on the market’s resilience, but also on how long the emergency lasts and how broadly it affects the population.
