750,000 Israelis Unemployed Amid Wars Against Iran and Lebanon

The wider unemployment rate, which includes furloughed workers, jumped to over 16 percent in March, as the hostilities shuttered most economic activity across Israel

Nati Tucker and The Marker, Haaretz, 30/4/2026

The wars with Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon have strained Israel's job market, with broad unemployment surging to 16.2 percent in March, affecting some 750,000 people.

The unemployment rate is the highest recorded since the COVID-19 crisis and the first lockdowns in early 2020. For comparison, following the start of the war on October 7, 2023, and during the 12-day war with Iran in June 2025, the unemployment rate stood at around 10 percent.

Unlike the often-cited "narrow" version, the broad unemployment rate is meant to show wider trends in the job market, traditionally going up during crises. It includes the common "narrow" unemployment rate, which measures "regular" job seekers. This figure actually remains relatively low, at 2.5 percent, or roughly 114,000 unemployed people.

But, aside from the "regular" job seekers, the wide unemployment rate includes three additional groups that are affected by trends in the job market. The second group, which is the most significant, is that of people who have been temporarily absent from their workplace during the previous week due to financial reasons. This includes people who have been furloughed by their employer due to the war and the restrictions placed on the general public.

Usually, this figure is extremely low. In January, for instance, it was around 20,000. But in March, some 600,000 people reported not working in the previous week due to economic reasons. This extremely high figure was a result of the war, which included shuttering most of Israel's economy and the school system.

The third group under this umbrella definition is those who have stopped their employment due to the business closing (there were around 20,000 of these in March), while the fourth is those who have given up on searching for a job.

As of March, there were 750,000 Israelis who were unemployed. For comparison, in October 2023, the figure stood at 10.4 percent, with some 467,000 unemployed people. In June 2025, during the first war with Iran, the figure stood at some 10.1 percent.

The workforce took a significant hit in March due to the war with Iran and the effect of the war against Lebanon, both of which led the economy to a standstill. Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics recently reported that a survey shows the demand for work is at the lowest it has been since October 7, despite the fact that unemployment is worse now than it was then.