The Israeli economy is one of the most adaptable in the world to work from home, or telecommuting, a new report from the Labor and Welfare Ministry indicates.
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According to the report, half of Israel's workforce, 47% of employees nationwide, can perform their jobs from home. When it comes to work from home potential, Israel is second only to Luxembourg and far ahead of the OECD average of 38% of the workforce.
Israel's high telecommuting potential is the result of the large number of employees in the education and technology sectors, both of which can be adapted to remote work.
However, despite the considerable potential for remote work in Israel, only 27% of employees actually worked from home during Israel's second lockdown from Sept.-Oct. 2020, the report stated.
One possible explanation for the discrepancy between the percentage of Israeli workers who can telecommute and those who actually do could be that while 91% of secular Israelis have access to the Internet, only 76% of Arabs and 37% of Haredi Jews own computers and have Internet access.
Labor Ministry officials warned that if legislation does not change to reflect the dramatic changes that have occurred in the labor market, the entire national economy, employers, and employees alike could suffer for it.
One of the issues cited in the report is the length of the average work day in Israel. Current law allows employees to work 12 hours a day, including overtime, which is significantly higher than the OECD average. Some 38% of respondents said they often work more, despite it being illegal.
The survey also revealed that the higher the salary, the more likely an employee was to work exceed the legal number of working hours. Some 43% of Israelis who earned more than 18,000 shekels ($5,500) reported working more hours than allowed, while only 11% of Israelis who earned a below-average salary reported the same.
The coronavirus pandemic reinforced the need to adjust labor law, as employers and workers were forced to change working hours to adapt to safety and lockdown restrictions.
The report also discovered a correlation between unemployment rates and level of education. Unemployment rates were lowest among Israelis with an academic degree: 10% of college-educated applied for unemployment benefits during the first lockdown and 14% during the second one.
Almost twice as many Israelis with only a yeshiva education applied for the benefits, namely 19%. Israelis with an academic degree were more likely to be assigned "essential worker" status.
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