Israel’s employment rate dropped in May, from 60.1% of the over-15 population employed in April to 59.9%, the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) revealed last month.
According to the CBS Labor Force Survey Data for May 2026, there were a total of 4,469,000 Israelis considered to be in the workforce (61.6%), of whom 126,500 (2.8%) were unemployed and 4,342,500 (97.2%) were employed.
The employment rate declined for both men (from 64.9% to 64.6%) and women (from 59.1% to 58.7%), the data revealed.
Jerusalem district has highest unemployment rate
The district with the highest unemployment rate was the Jerusalem district, CBS said, with the rate rising from 3.4% in April to 4.1% in May. Conversely, the districts with the lowest unemployment rates were Tel Aviv and central Israel, with each at 2.4% in May (down from 2.7% and 2.6%, respectively, in April).
The data also showed that the percentage of Israelis working full-time (35 or more hours per week) rose from 78.6% in April to 79.1% in May.
In January, CBS announced that in December 2025, the number of job vacancies in Israel reached the highest number since November 2022, at 152,134.
