The Composite State of the Economy Index for January 2021 declined by 0.2 percent, signaling a decline in activity at the beginning of the third lockdown
The Bank of Israel's Composite State of the Economy Index for January declined by 0.16 percent, influenced by the third lockdown, which began toward the end of December. Since most data for building the Index are obtained with a lag, the Index for January only partly reflects the change in economic activity resulting from the increased morbidity and the third lockdown.
The Composite Index for January was negatively affected by declines in the revenue index (December), and the import of consumer goods, and goods exports indices (January). In contrast, the Industrial Production index (December), import of production inputs (excluding fuels) (January), services exports (November), employee posts (November), and job vacancy rate (January) increased, which had a positive impact on the Index. Table 2 presents the development of components of the Index in the past few months. Revisions to the Index for previous months show that economic activity in October was significantly impacted by the second lockdown (Table 1).
In view of the uniqueness of the crisis and the resulting measurement difficulties, the intensity of the changes in the Index should not be used as an indicator of the precise intensity of changes in economic activity, and particularly not regarding the relative intensity between various months.
Table 1: Revisions in the Composite Index
|
Revision |
Previous figure |
New figure |
|
January 2021 |
|
-0.16 |
|
December 2020 |
0.52 |
0.43 |
|
November |
0.65 |
0.77 |
|
October |
-0.12 |
-0.52 |
|
September |
0.23 |
0.15 |
|
August |
0.47 |
0.40 |
Table 2: Changes in the Index components in recent months♦
(monthly percent change, unless otherwise noted)
|
|
January 2021 |
December 2020 |
November 2020 |
October 2020 |
|
Industrial Production Index (excluding mining and quarrying) |
|
0.5 |
1.2 |
-0.4 |
|
Services Revenue Index (excluding education and public administration) |
|
-1.4 |
4.8 |
-2.1 |
|
Retail Trade Revenue Index |
|
-0.1 |
9.6 |
-0.9 |
|
Imports of consumer goods1 |
-2.8 |
5.0 |
7.2 |
2.1 |
|
Imports of manufacturing inputs (excluding fuels)1 |
3.5 |
1.4 |
2.7 |
1.4 |
|
Goods exports (excluding agriculture)1 |
-2.9 |
0.5 |
-3.6 |
1.9 |
|
Services exports (excluding transportation)2 |
|
|
0.2 |
-4.1 |
|
Number of employee posts in the private sector |
|
|
5.0 |
-10.2 |
|
Job vacancy rate in the business sector3 |
2.6 |
2.6 |
2.5 |
2.4 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
1 Goods imports and exports are calculated in fixed prices (adjusted for changes in foreign trade price indices).
2 Services exports are calculated in real terms using the Consumer Price Index, and are comprised of the export of other business services and the export of tourism services.
3 The job vacancy rate is calculated out of the total number of employed people, and is included in the index at its seasonally adjusted level.
Detailed explanations regarding how the Composite Index is calculated, as well as detailed long-term tables, can be found at
https://www.boi.org.il/en/Research/Pages/ind.aspx