Employment and salary statistics released for Oct.

By JPOST.COM STAFF
jib.awards.298.vote (photo credit: )
jib.awards.298.vote
(photo credit: )
Hundreds of thousands of workers ended the month of October with a slightly higher overdraft than before. According to figures released on Monday, the average Israeli salary went down 5.5% in October, dropping to NIS 7,179. The annual growth rate of Israeli salaries, however, remains at 1.2%. The report, released by the Central Bureau of Statistics, also states that in October there were 2.4 million jobs available, indicating stability in the job market. Other data showed that 27% of wage-earners earn up to half of the average salary. The average salary for this low-income bracket, which includes more than 640,000 workers, is only NIS 1,933. The number of workers in the bracket went up by 19,000 since the previous month, but when seasonal factors are considered the number of workers in the bracket actually went down in comparison with previous years. At the top of the list of wage-earners, employees of the electric utility brought home NIS 15,289 on average in October. Bank employees also did well with an average of NIS 12,210. At the bottom of the list were waiters, who are almost universally paid no more than minimum wage.