Workers' share of the national income pie has not grown since 2011, while the share of employers has increased, Adva Center states in its annual report, "Workers, employees, and the national income pie", written by Dr. Shlomo Swirski, Etty Konor-Attias, and Arianne Ofir.
According to the report, in 2012, Israeli workers benefited from jobs growth and a steady drop in unemployment, which was 6.9%. However, the workers' share of national income was unchanged from 2011, at 62%. This is a substantially lower proportion from ten years earlier in 2002 - 67%.
Employers' proportion of national income rose to 15% in 2012, its highest level in a decade. The Adva Center says that since national income was NIS 788 billion in 2012, each percentage of it amounts to NIS 7.88 billion. Therefore, were the workers' share of national income at its level of 2012, they would have earned an additional NIS 39.4 billion last year.
The report states that, in 2002-12, national income grew by 46%, but while workers' income rose by 35%, employers' income grew by 160%.
"If we divide this amount by the number of workers in Israel in 2012 - 3.6 million (excluding non-Israelis and IDF regular and career soldiers) - we find that each employee should have earned, on average, an additional NIS 10,924 in that year, or NIS 910 per month," the report states, "but the additional NIS 39.4 billion, instead of accruing to workers, accrued to employers."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on April 30, 2013
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2013