Less than a year after Israel explored the possibility of importing foreign high tech workers, citing employee shortages in the field, Israeli high tech companies are slashing hundreds of jobs.
On Sunday alone, 500 high-tech employees were laid off — 400 of them at the R&D center for Aid Genomics, according to Israel’s KAN News public broadcaster.
Asurion shut down its R&D center (Soluto) as well, laying off all 120 of its employees.
Last week, Vimeo cut its workforce by six percent — including at its R&D center in Israel, where at least 10 employees lost their jobs.
Earlier this month, Fabric — a retail technology unicorn — laid off 120 employees, fully one-third of its staff.
Nevertheless, two weeks ago Uri Gabai, CEO of the Start-Up Nation Policy Institute said in remarks to a National Economic Conference that despite the layoffs, “the first half of 2022 still looks good with $10 billion in investments in Israeli startups — so if there is a change, we are only at the beginning,” Calcalist reported.
The short-term halt, Gabai said, will be “painful” but added that it could be a good thing “as it will make the sector sane again.” He added that “quite a few high-tech CEOs” have said that wages “have already become unrealistic.”
Gabai predicted that technology and the demand for technological solutions will continue to grow, and so will the demand for employees to develop them. “Therefore, in the long term, the demand for high-tech employees in Israel will continue to grow,” he said.
