In March-September 2000, an unprecedented 10% increase was posted in the average wage of high tech professions in demand, mainly in development fields.
Following the hike, a software engineer with five years experience earns an average NIS 18,000 a month and a hardware engineer with similar experience earns close to $20,000. This emerges from a periodic report, known as “the Zviran index”, by Prof. Moshe Zviran of the Tel Aviv University School of Business Management.
The report, issued twice a year, in March and September, is regarded among high tech companies as the most comprehensive high tech salary review in Israel.
The report is based on data from 270 high tech companies, start-ups and long standing enterprises, relating to 70,000 employees in all professions (engineering, R&D, operations, marketing and sales, customer service, information systems, finances and administration).
Scores of high tech companies rely on Zviran’s data in negotiations with new recruits. As the companies purchase the report, Zviran does not publish the full data.
”I have prepared the report for the past seventeen years and have not seen such a substantial increase in wages in high tech branches within a six-month period,” Zviran says. According to Zviran, the trend reflects the increasing shortage of experienced workers.
”In the past three years, wages in high tech branches have spiraled at a dizzying pace,” Zviran notes. “The reason is the shortage of workers, leading to the abduction of workers from one company to another.”
Another trend emerging from the report is that more and more companies are now considering giving employees options and other frameworks in an effort to retain them (“golden handcuffs”).
Not only engineers but administrative assistants and secretaries, with counterparts in non-high tech sectors, benefit from the surge in the sector’s salaries. “At the same time, it should be borne in mind that high tech secretaries normally work harder than their counterparts in other sectors,” Zviran says.
The average high tech employee devotes 11-12 hours a day to work.
Published by Israel's Business Arena on 2 October, 2000