JERUSALEM, March 21 (Xinhua) -- Israel's unemployment rate hit a record low of 5.4 percent in February since the COVID-19 outbreak in the country in early 2020, with 237,300 registered jobless, the Central Bureau of Statistics said Monday.
Among the unemployed by the end of February, 77,500 people, or nearly 32.7 percent, reported being laid off or put on unpaid leave because of the pandemic, according to the Israeli bureau.
Isreal has witnessed a steady decline in unemployment since September 2021 when 7.9 percent of the labor force reported out of work.
In March 2020, just after the first COVID-19 case was reported in Israel in late February, the country's unemployment rate surged to 25 percent, with more than 1 million people becoming jobless after the pandemic outbreak.
The Israeli unemployment rate was only 4 percent at the end of February 2020. ■
