Avi Hasson: Demand for tech workers still exists

Avi Hasson Credit: Eyal Izhar
Avi Hasson Credit: Eyal Izhar

The Start-Up Nation Central CEO and former Israel Innovation Authority chair says there may be a slowdown in hiring but workforce shortages won't disappear.

"It is possible we will see a slowdown in hiring employees, so that companies that planned to grow by 1,000 employees will hire only 700 employees, or perhaps even 300 employees, but the demand for workers still exists and companies are continuing to grow," Start-Up Nation Central CEO Avi Hasson, former Chief Scientist and Israel Innovation Authority Chairman, told the Globes Human Resources Challenges in the High-Tech Industry Conference.

He added, "The demand for manpower is not connected to economic cycles, in my opinion, and it will only strengthen. If we see a temporary fall, it won't influence hiring in the long-term. The problem of a workforce shortage won't disappear and it is long term.

"Human resources needs in high-tech are only getting bigger. More and more international projects are coming to Israel and the range of positions is only getting larger with growth in jobs in the entire range of roles in high-tech, like marketing, sales and data. So the challenge for the government is bigger and its role in training human resources is more complicated. The solutions exist but unfortunately the education system is not currently prepared to handle the industry's needs. If we look at those graduating high school with five units in math and examine how the number has grown, we will see that the strong are getting stronger. The main growth is in the central region and the strong cities. This is not only a problem of integration and equality but mainly the need to enlarge the base of the pyramid of those employed in Israeli high-tech."

Start-Up Nation Central is an independent non-profit that helps develop policies and processes to promote the Israeli tech sector. "In recent years we have focused activities not only on mapping data but also building models for various solutions, which we make accessible to industry, to our government and also foreign governments and authorities," Hasson explains. "We have joined forces with the tech industry, our main customer, in order to understand the precise needs and build a joint model for a solution - that will serve as a basis for a broader scale-up.

"We have built an efficient and practical model, which begins by concentrating around the table all the relevant stakeholders to the solution - industry, academia, government, philanthropy, and representatives of the public and from there we have moved forward to an effective process of defining the problem, managing pilot projects, like the Adva project, excellent team and fighters for high-tech. We have pushed forward these processes not only in Israel but also abroad, most recently in Morocco and the UAE, on the basis of the experience and lessons learned by Israel."

Full disclosure: Start-Up National Central was a partner in the Globes Human Resources Challenges in the High-Tech Industry Conference.

Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on June 16, 2022.

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2022.

Avi Hasson Credit: Eyal Izhar
Avi Hasson Credit: Eyal Izhar
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