Employers in Israel are pessimistic about recruitment for the third quarter of 2020, according to a quarterly survey by ManpowerGroup.
The survey, conducted during the coronavirus outbreak, reflects the ramifications of the crisis, and its results were dramatically different from the results of the same survey in the two preceding quarters.
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All respondents, which comprise a representative sample of Israeli employers, were asked the same question: "What changes do you expect to see in the total amount of employment in your area in the next three months, compared to the current quarter?"
Twenty percent of respondents said they expected a drop-off in recruitment, whereas 13% expected their workforce to increase.
Employers were also asked how the coronavirus crisis had affected their business activity in the past three months, and how long they expected the crisis to last. A total of 16% of employers said their business had come to a standstill, with another 13% reporting a drop of 80%-99%. Another 21% of employers reported that their business had declined by 50-80%, and 24% said they had seen a decrease of as much as 50%.
Only 1% of employers reported a rise in business during the corona crisis.
The sector that reported the biggest hit was, not surprisingly, restaurants and hotels, which saw their business drop by 68%. More than half (54%) of employers expected that their business would resume normal capacity in the next three months, whereas 8% said they did not know when they would return to full capacity, if at all.
Northern Israel saw the lowest rate of recruitment, with new hires down by 14%. Tel Aviv and southern Israel expect to see their recruitment drop by 13% and 11%, respectively. Jerusalem employers reported that they expected recruitment to decline by 3%, and Haifa employers expected recruitment to drop by only 1%.
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