Israel’s National Insurance Institute (NII) announced last week that new claims for unemployment benefits fell to 16,000 in November 2009, compared with 16,600 such claims in October, marking a 3% drop.



New claims for unemployment benefits have been falling since July, a trend that reinforces the clear improvement in the Israeli labor market. The number of people who have been unemployed for an extended period of time fell by 2% in November, compared with the preceding month.



Despite the drop noted over the past few months, the NII said 2009 saw an overall rise of 50% in general unemployment claims and a 40% rise in new jobless claims, many of which were filed following the new, government-approved, unemployment claims.