Israel’s move to bring its economic statistics in line with leading Western countries has led to a far bleaker picture of its jobs market, undermining claims that the country is riding through the global crisis with relative ease.
The Central Bureau of Statistics on Monday unveiled a new employment survey – a reworking of past surveys – that showed a first-quarter jobless rate of 6.7 percent.
It compared with fourth-quarter rate of 5.4 percent using the old system, a number that was touted at the time as being the lowest level in three decades.
According to the new survey, the jobless rate in the last three months of 2011 should have been 6.8 percent.
Officials were quick to say that there has not actually been a spike in joblessness.
“There wasn’t a change in the economy. The numbers just reflect better coverage of the labor market,” Yoel Finkel, Israel’s associate statistician, told Reuters. “There has been a change in the level but not the trend. It’s still one of the lowest in the world.”…
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Read more @ Israel’s jobless rate leaps as the counting changes | Reuters.
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