The average monthly wage in Israel in November 2023 rose 9.5% from November 2022, the Central Bureau of Statistics reports, reaching an all-time record of NIS 12,969. Even taking inflation into account, the average wage rose in real terms by 6% between November 2022 and November 2023.
But there is a particularly large caveat. In November 2023, the number of jobs in the economy fell by 4.9% compared with November 2022, and was also down 2.5% compared with October 2023. Due to the war many employees have been laid off or put on unpaid leave because of the slowdown in business activity, and this may have caused an artificial rise in the average wage.
A similar phenomenon occurred during the Covid pandemic, when the average wage jumped as a result of the dismissal of mainly low-paid workers. This led to the freezing of linkage on payments linked to the increase in the average salary, such as pensions and child allowances, salaries of MKs, and senior officials, as well as income tax rates.
In the high-tech industry, the jump in the average wage was even more extreme. The average wage in the tech sector rose 10.4% in November 2023 compared with November 2022, to more than NIS 29,000. However, the in the high-tech industry the number of jobs fell 1%, reflecting a genuine rise in employees' wages and not an artificial statistical rise. In November 2023, high-tech jobs represented 10.4% of the overall jobs in the Israeli economy.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on February 4, 2024.
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