The Composite State of the Economy Index for November 2020 increased by 0.67 percent

The Bank of Israel's Composite State of the Economy Index for November increased by 0.67 percent, influenced by the exit from the second lockdown.  This lockdown began in mid-September, and was tightened in late September, and the gradual exit from it began on October 18. Since most of the data for compiling the index are obtained with a lag, the index for November does not reflect the entire change in economic activity following the exit from the second lockdown. The increase in the index reflects an increase in the job vacancy rate, consumer goods imports, and imports of manufacturing inputs.  In contrast, goods exports and industrial production declined. Table 2 presents the development of components of the Index in the past few months.  The data for the other components received in October made virtually no change to the data for previous months (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.

 

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

 

 

Table 1: Revisions in the Composite Index

Revision	Previous figure	New figure
November 2020		0.67
October	0.06	0.02
September	0.28	0.28
August	0.42	0.42
July	0.08	0.09
June	0.74	0.78

 

 

 

Table 2: Changes in the Index components in recent months^♦

(monthly percent change, unless otherwise noted)

	November 2020	October 2020	September 2020	August 2020
Industrial Production Index (excluding mining and quarrying)		-0.8	2.7	1.4
Services Revenue Index (excluding education and public administration)		-0.8	-1.6	2.4
Retail Trade Revenue Index		-0.7	-8.5	-0.6
Imports of consumer goods1	6.8	-5.5	12.7	-1.6
Imports of manufacturing inputs (excluding fuels) 1	2.2	0.2	2.8	-1.5
Goods exports (excluding agriculture) 1	-5.7	2.1	13.0	4.2
Services exports (excluding transportation) 2			4.3	-0.2
Number of employee posts in the private sector			-0.2	0.7
Job vacancy rate in the business sector3	2.5	2.4	2.3	2.4
Building starts4			6.3

 

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.

⁴ Since the Central Bureau of Statistics publishes data on building starts once per quarter, the data integrated into the model are at a monthly frequency based on additional sources, such that the distribution is consistent with the quarterly data published by the Central Bureau of Statistics (in percent, seasonally adjusted).

 

 

 

 

For additional data and explanations, please click here.

http://www.boi.org.il/en/Research/Pages/ind.aspx