Unemployment in Israel soars amidst COVID-19 lockdown: official

Source: Xinhua| 2020-09-29 21:26:34|Editor: huaxia

JERUSALEM, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- The number of unemployed people in Israel has reached 895,858 amidst a sweeping COVID-19 lockdown, the country's official Employment Service said on Tuesday.

Since Sept. 17, a day before the start of the second sweeping lockdown in Israel, 163,297 additional persons have been registered as unemployed, bringing the overall number of unemployed people to 895,858, according to the new figures.

Some 560,679 of the overall number of unemployed are employees who were put on forced leave.

Israel's government has imposed a three-week-long lockdown on Sept. 18, in a bid to curb soaring morbidity.

Chief economist of the Finance Ministry Shira Greenberg estimated ahead of the lockdown that the move will cost the local economy some 11 billion shekels (about 3.2 billion U.S. dollars). Enditem

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