West Bank and Gaza: Selected Issues
IMF Staff Country Reports, April 25, 2023
Source details
- Canonical URL
- West Bank and Gaza: Selected Issues
Other formats
Bibliographic details
- Published: April 25, 2023
- Series: IMF Staff Country Reports
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.5089/9798400241161.002
Key findings
- The Palestinian economy did not create enough jobs to absorb new labor market entrants.
- Labor force participation rates remained stubbornly low and among the lowest in the world for Palestinian women.
- Female labor outcomes are particularly disappointing.
- For both sexes, there are high disparities in labor market outcomes across governorates and cities, reflecting geographic fragmentation and spatial mismatch between labor force and employment growth.
- The gap in labor outcomes between the West Bank and Gaza has widened over time.
- Overall, a high elasticity of jobs to growth of 0.7 suggests improved labor market outcomes and higher growth would go hand in hand.
Labor market dynamics and constraints
- Insufficient job creation relative to new labor market entrants.
- Persistent low labor force participation, with notably poor outcomes for women.
- Large geographic disparities in labor outcomes across governorates and cities driven by fragmentation and spatial mismatch between labor supply and employment growth.
- Diverging trajectories between the West Bank and Gaza, with the gap in labor outcomes widening over time.
Policy analysis and recommendations
- Further facilitation of private sector job creation in high-productivity tradable services sectors could help absorb well-educated labor market entrants.
- Palestinian Authority (PA) policies could raise female labor force participation and employment.
- PA policies alone will not suffice to tackle job market challenges, as growth remains tepid in ambitious policy scenarios, barring easing of Israeli-imposed restrictions on the movement of people.
Scenarios and implications
- Ambitious PA policy scenarios still yield tepid growth unless Israeli-imposed restrictions on the movement of people are eased.
- A high elasticity of jobs to growth of 0.7 indicates that policies or conditions that raise growth are likely to have substantively positive impacts on employment outcomes.
Source: West Bank and Gaza: Selected Issues (April 25, 2023).
Content in this bundle
- West Bank and Gaza: Selected Issues; April 14, 2023