아프리카ㆍ중동

Annual economic growth in Israel of 3.5% over the past decade has largely been the result of an increase in employment rates, while the growth rate in productivity has been very low. The rates of employment cannot continue to grow at this rate in the future due to the expected saturation in employment rates among the non-ultra-Orthodox Jewish population. Even the achievement of optimistic employment goals among sectors with currently low participation rates will not prevent a drop in GDP growth to a historically low level of only 2.3% per year. Israel’s GDP per capita is not catching up to that of comparable OECD countries and the gap has remained unchanged for more than 40 years. Without reforms to increase the productivity growth rate, Israel’s relative GDP per capita is expected to deteriorate.