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
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
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