High-tech salaries in Israel's IT and communications sectors rose by 6% in 2015 to 18,400 per month at the end of December, according to the weekly economic survey published today by Ministry of Finance Chief Economist Yoel Naveh. The high-tech sector has now surpassed electricity and water, where average salaries were NIS 18,100 at the end of 2015, as the country's best-paid sector. The overall average salary in 2015 rose 3% from NIS 9,359 at the beginning of the year to NIS 9,590 at the end of December. The salary rise in high-tech was double the average due to a shortage of skilled employees in the sector.
The rise in salaries in the private sector was the highest since 2000-2001. The worst paid sector in Israel remains accommodation and catering where average salaries are just NIS 4,400-5,200 per month. According to Naveh, the salary increases in this sector were due to the steep rises in communications services (8%) software R&D (7.1%), and computer programming (5.8%). These three sub-sectors accounted for 80% of all the jobs in the information and communications sector. "It is possible that the salary increase in this sector results from a shortage of labor, as reflected in the high rate of available jobs," the report stated.
The Ministry of Finance said that the labor supply constraint was a significant factor in the steep pay increase in 2015. This was reflected in stable rates of participation in the labor force (64-64.5%), combined with low unemployment of 5%. "In sectors in which the proportion of available jobs was higher, the increase in real pay was steeper, due to difficulty in recruiting workers in these sectors. The information and communications sector especially stood out. Despite the high salaries in this sector, the proportion of available jobs was among the highest," the report stated. Another sector having trouble recruiting workers was the construction industry, despite the rapid growth in the number of jobs there in 2015.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on March 13, 2016
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