The Bank of Israel's Composite State of the Economy Index for November 2014 increased by 0.1 percent. The Index’s rate of growth has stabilized in the past four months at a level slightly higher than the rate in March–July, but is low relative to the previous year. The Index for November was positively impacted by a substantial increase in the rate of job vacancies, continuing a similar increase in the previous month, and by an increase in the services revenue index. The Index’s growth rate was moderated by the foreign trade indices for November, and the October Industrial Production and trade revenue indices. The index’s rate of increase in recent months was revised slightly higher (Table 1), due to better than expected data on services exports.[1] Table 2 presents the development of components of the Index in the past few months.
Revision |
Previous data |
New data |
November |
0.14 | |
October |
0.06 |
0.12 |
September |
0.16 |
0.16 |
August |
0.09 |
0.13 |
November |
October |
September |
August | |
Industrial Production Index (excluding mining and quarrying) |
-1.2 |
0.8 |
3.6 | |
Services Revenue Index (excluding finance, education, and public administration) |
0.7 |
1.3 |
2.1 | |
Trade Revenue Index |
-1.2 |
4.1 |
2.3 | |
Imports of consumer goods3 |
-1.0 |
-0.7 |
-6.6 |
7.5 |
Imports of manufacturing inputs (excluding fuels)3 |
-0.5 |
-3.1 |
-0.1 |
-1.2 |
Goods exports (excluding agriculture) 3 |
-3.3 |
1.6 |
6.3 |
-7.5 |
Services exports (excluding transportation) 3 |
-1.9 |
-0.1 |
10.8 |
-8.0 |
Number of employee posts in the private sector |
0.7 |
-0.3 | ||
Rate of vacant employee posts out of total number of employed people in the business sector1 |
2.81 |
2.74 |
2.65 |
2.67 |
Building starts2 |
2.7 |
-4.9 |