Israel’s high-tech industry, the main engine of the economy, experienced welcome growth in 2019 with tech workers making up 9.2 percent – some 321,000 employees – of the national workforce and representing an eight percent increase over 2018, according to a joint report released on Wednesday by Start-Up Nation Central (SNC) and the Israel Innovation Authority (IIA). The rate of workers employed in the high-tech sector was locked at about eight percent for about a decade previously. At the same time, the shortage of tech workers rose significantly over the past few years, with an estimated 18,500 open tech positions in the industry as of July 2019 – an increase of eight percent compared with July 2018.
According to the report, 40 percent of open positions in July 2019 were in the software and product infrastructure, with cybersecurity and data scientist roles leading the charge with high demand. And seven out of 10 employees in the high-tech industry were in tech positions (compared to one out of two in 2012), with a significant increase in this rate when employed in multinational corporations.
