In the event of an economic crisis, will more people take proactive steps and resign voluntarily?
According to data published by the Employment Service, more people did resign from their jobs during the Corona period, despite the economic situation.
This trend, which had previously begun in a situation where the Israeli labor market had reached an ideal situation with a high number of job vacancies, also included during the crisis more groups of low-wage earners who voluntarily resigned from their jobs.
The work of the employment service traces the reasons why people resign from their jobs not only during economic growth, or in response to economic growth, but rather in crises.
The employment service claims that this is not a new phenomenon, but certainly a phenomenon that accelerated following the corona.
Eventually, this process led to a situation where a high rate of job seekers was recorded, alongside a high rate of job vacancies.
Similar data in America
According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, the vacancy rate has steadily increased in recent months and in June reached 3.2% of the labor force - the highest rate since the bureau began conducting the survey.
At the same time, the proportion of jobseekers in the employment service, including workers in the IDF, laid off and those with income support, relative to the labor force in June, was 6.9% - still considerably higher than in previous crises.
Employment Service Offices, Joshua Yosef
It is possible that these data indicate a unique phenomenon in Israel as well: the vacancy rate has reached a peak precisely when the rate of job seekers is particularly high, the employment service in Israel claims.
Similar to Israel, US labor market data also point to a similar phenomenon.
The number of voluntary resignations from the workplace reached a peak during the Corona period, when in June the number of resignations stood at almost 3.9 million, representing 2.7% of the US workforce, close to the peak set in April, when it stood at almost 4 million workers.
This phenomenon occurs while businesses are struggling to fill vacancies, while offering improved pay rises and conditions for recruiting.
But despite this, businesses are having a hard time catching up with the rising demand for workers.
The increase in the number of resigners symbolizes a "market of workers".
Boys at an employment fair in Petah Tikva,
That is, the excess demand for workers and the horizontal increases in wages and especially in the leisure industries - a trend that maintains a relatively high inflation environment - encourage workers to leave their jobs to achieve better opportunities.
The fact that the unemployment rate in the US is high at 5.4%, or 8% if one also takes into account those who have given up looking for work, has sparked a discussion about this paradox.
The data published by the Employment Service point to the similarities between the Israeli and American markets in this matter, and also point to the fact that in fact the phenomenon of voluntary resignation began even before the corona, and as mentioned, intensified with the outbreak of the plague.
A different and unique trend
In general, an increase in the number of resigners indicates a tight labor market, which is characterized by full employment and minimal unemployment.
But this trend of the American market and the Israeli market is different and unique to the United States and Israel, unlike most OECD countries, the employment service claims.
Support for the unemployed
The similarity between Israel and the United States in this phenomenon is mainly explained by the fact that in both countries they chose models of support for the unemployed, instead of encouraging the retention of workers, as was the case in Germany and other countries in the union.
In the US, they even went further than that when they increased unemployment benefits, so that according to a study quoted in the Employment Service, 76% of those eligible received a larger benefit than the wage they received before the corona plague broke out in the world.
