Israel’s Jobless Count Falls Back Toward Prewar Levels as Economy Reopens

As the Israeli economy returned to full activity, about 216,000 people went back to work over the past two months, and the number of job seekers stood at 180,100 at the end of May. During the war period in late March, that figure had climbed to 395,600. The Employment Service expects that, if intense fighting does not resume, the number will keep declining in the coming months toward the usual range of 150,000 to 160,000.

The figures come from the Employment Service’s May Labor Market Pulse report, published Wednesday morning. In February, before the war began, the number of job seekers was 155,500, the same level seen in May 2025 before the previous war. Officials said the rise in March and April reflected the reduction in economic activity caused by Home Front Command instructions during Operation Rising Lion, and that the return to near-normal activity quickly restored the labor market, as happened during the COVID-19 shutdowns and earlier fighting rounds.

The report notes that most job seekers in these periods are not unemployed in the classic sense, but workers placed on unpaid leave under the government’s compensation arrangements for employers. The decline was recorded in every city with more than 40,000 residents, with an average drop of 43.3%. The sharpest falls were in ultra-Orthodox cities, where Modi'in Illit and Bnei Brak both saw a 74% decrease after heavy use of unpaid leave during the war pushed those cities to the top of the unemployment rankings.

As a result, Bnei Brak had the lowest job-seeker rate in May, at 2.3%, alongside stronger cities such as Kfar Saba, Ra'anana and Ramat HaSharon. Arab cities returned to their familiar positions at the top of the list, with Rahat at 6% and Umm al-Fahm at 5.9%. Women made up 54.4% of job seekers in May, down 5.2 percentage points; young people accounted for 28.3%, down 6.1 points; and the ultra-Orthodox share fell 3 points to 7.1%.

Employment Service Director General Inbal Mashash said, “The labor market is once again proving that it knows how to recover from crises. Now we must ensure that reserve soldiers and their families do not pay an employment price for their service.”