Israel’s Finance Ministry assesses in a new report that it could take the economy until 2025 to return to its pre-pandemic unemployment rates and growth statistics.
According to the report, released on Sunday by Channel 13, the assessment is based on predictions of a third COVID-19 wave, requiring the reinstatement of harsh measures, such as lockdowns, to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
The report forecasts that the negative growth for 2020 alone will be somewhere between 5.9 and 7.2 percent, with some 70,000 businesses having folded by the end of 2020, as opposed to 45,000 in an average year, and the number of people currently out of work estimated to be 800,000.
Meanwhile, the Bank of Israel reported on Sunday that some 50,000 young couples in Israel are having difficulty making their mortgage repayments, which now amount to more than 30 percent of their monthly income.