The number of Israelis fired from their jobs reached a three-year peak in June, with women the worst hit, the Israeli Employment Service said in a report published on Wednesday. "The total number of those dismissed in the month of June stood at 16,084 (the highest number since July 2009), of which 7,497 were men and 8,587 were women," it said.
"The rate of unemployment in the civil work force in June 2012 stood at 5.58 percent and has been continuously rising since the beginning of the year," it added. It said that in July, 118,762 women and 88,229 men registered as jobseekers with the Employment Service, most of them from academic posts, management or jobs as technical, sales or service professionals.