JERUSALEM, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- The total number of unemployed people in Israel exceeded 900,000, the Israel Employment Service announced Wednesday.
Since Sept. 17, a day before a full nationwide lockdown took effect in Israel, 178,020 additional Israelis have applied for unemployment benefits, the bureau said.
This brings the overall number of unemployed people in Israel to 909,460.
The data also show that 63 percent of the unemployed were put on unpaid leave by their employers.
The unemployment rate in Israel currently stands at 21.7 percent, compared with a peak of 27.5 percent at the end of April.
In February, just before the pandemic broke out in Israel, the unemployment rate in the country was only 3.9 percent which was around 162,500 people. Enditem
