Research: Israel has reached the exhaustion of human capital in high-tech

This is according to a report published by the Taub Center for Social Policy Research in Israel. The barrier: the lack of skills of Haredim and Arabs

Kiryat Atidim. Photo: from Wikipedia
Kiryat Atidim. Photo: from Wikipedia

 

Israel has reached the exhaustion of human capital in high-tech. This is according to a report published by the Taub Center for Social Policy Research in Israel.

The author, Gilad Brand, explains that Israel is considered the start-up nation, but the share of the high-tech sector in total employment in the economy is only about 8 percent. However, this sector is of great importance to the economy, being the source of a quarter of income tax payments, and recently a comprehensive reform was approved to encourage employment in the sector.

However, despite the high salary levels in hi-tech, the employment rate in the industry has remained almost unchanged for over a decade, and there are data indicating that employers are having difficulty filling jobs; Demand and supply surveys in the labor market by the Central Bureau of Statistics consistently show 3 that the number of vacancies in the fields of science, engineering and information technology is higher than the number of job seekers.

In recent years, several government programs have been launched designed to expand the supply of workers suitable for the field. Among other things, the quotas for students in the fields of computer science were increased, vocational training tracks were launched that include intensive and dedicated high-tech training programs (coding bootcamp) and a reform was implemented to encourage mathematics studies on an increased scale in high schools.

In addition to this, in January 2017 a comprehensive government program was approved to increase the supply of skilled high-tech workforce. The plan includes encouraging the immigration of skilled workers from abroad who are returning residents, or are entitled to citizenship by virtue of the Law of Return, as well as facilitating the granting of work licenses to foreign experts. To improve the existing stock of human capital, the plan proposes to expand the scholarships awarded to students in the technological fields, to launch programs to expose students for science and technology within the framework of informal education, and to subsidize conversion courses for the integration of academics in the high-tech industry. The reform also offers subsidies for extra-academic training, such as digital courses, the expansion of the technological subjects taught in seminars for ultra-Orthodox women, and the creation of an orientation and placement envelope that focuses on populations that are currently underrepresented. In high-tech - women, Arabs and ultra-Orthodox.

The study examined the extent of the potential inherent in this program, using the OECD Graduate Skills Survey (PIAAC). The study shows that the potential for further expansion of employment in the high-tech sector among the adult population in Israel is low, at least in the short term. The reasons for this are that today the proportion of high-tech workers is relatively high in the world, while the rest of the workers in the economy - mainly among Arabs and ultra-Orthodox - are characterized by a very low skill level. Because of this, the gaps between the skills of the high-tech workers in Israel and the skills of the workers in the other branches of the economy are the widest among all the comparison countries, and it seems that the high-tech field has already absorbed most of the workers capable of working in it.

It was also found that due to low proficiency in English and a low general skill level (as measured in the survey), in the short term the potential for expanding employment in high-tech among the ultra-orthodox population and the adult Arab population is particularly low. The little existing potential is focused precisely on the non-Orthodox Jewish population, to which the majority of hi-tech workers belong anyway. These findings emphasize that the transfer of professional training to employees will have only a limited effect, and in order to increase the employment potential in the high-tech sector in the long term, the deficiencies in the education system must be corrected, especially among ultra-Orthodox and Arabs.

For the full study - Can the startup nation grow?

Comments

  1. for miracles:
    Brain drain from Israel?
    Between 1980 and 2018 they were added to the Israeli economy
    395,000 academics, who studied in academic institutions abroad.
    After deducting the academics who left (Israelis and new immigrants) this is a very impressive number of 318,000.

    Since 2010, approximately 4,500 holders of doctorate and professor degrees have returned to Israel. More than half of them have been absorbed into universities as senior faculty and the rest into industry and entrepreneurship.

  2. Do me a favor, there are 50+ year old engineers hanging around the market for lack of employment. There is a requirement for young people only and with experience. Because even the young university graduates can't find work

  3. Again and again it turns out that the general level in all fields and not only in high-tech is falling,
    If the State of Israel was once close to the head of the lions
    After all, today she is moving behind the foxes
    And it's sad

  4. In addition, if Israel employs hi-tech technicians after the age of 40, say until 55, there will be no shortage. These people don't have
    Hi-tech jobs and they are looking for a new career in education or nursing. In the data science course being taught now, an absolute majority of the participants are 50 years old and a large majority financed the cost of the course themselves: 20,000 NIS = a small second-hand car.
    They are not obsolete, and some of them at least in execution speed write code faster and more efficiently than young people. the cold
    s complements
    They have a gap that has been created in the academy and carries out the transfer of technology from the academy to the industry in terms of education.
    The approach today is to outsource everything and the farm is concentrated in 5 families.
    These emit workers - because they become expensive. A senior employee earns twice as much gross for the employer.
    At such a salary he will hire two novice workers, without the experience, the spatial vision of the veterans.
    We are not talking about those who only want to manage - but about those who stayed in programming
    These work as freelancers and need to generate pension savings and insurance for themselves. Even those who don't have a problem
    Cash, they have no Friday or Saturday. They work from morning to night on a freelance basis.

    If we believe that this is a decree from heaven, then there is no problem with it. If we are in the category of a high-tech worker, we all are
    We will reach a broken trough at the age of 50, necessarily making a living until the age of 67 for men until receiving a pension.

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