The number of Jewish and Arab youth in high-tech has increased significantly in the last 15 years and reached 11,000, which is 10% of their age. However, a third of the growth of very old youth is due to natural growth. The increase in the Arab population is slow and steady, but half of them are of Druze or Christian origin, which constitute only one-sixth of the Arab population. This is according to a report prepared by the director of economic research of Pareto, Gilad Cohen Kovacs, the work branch of the Ministry of Economy.
The Labor Department is the agency that manages the integration of the poor into the labor market. According to the report, the percentage of young people aged 25-35 working in high technology is 7.2%. According to the report, in order to maintain the growth rate of high technology, the employment rate of ultra-orthodox Jews and Arabs needs to grow at a rate of 2.5X faster than the current rate.
The number of Jewish youth working in high technology has grown over the last decade and a half from just 2,000 in 2005, which was 2.4% of all high tech workers, to more than 6,000, which was 5.5% 2019 Only a quarter of this increase is due to an increase in the proportion of highly active women working in high tech.
With regard to the ancient men, there were no changes in the employment rates of the site which remained at 2%-2.5% throughout the period. Ultra-orthodox women now make up two-thirds of ultra-orthodox working in high tech and their employment rate is increasing.
The number of young Arabs in high-tech has increased from about 1,000, which is 1.3% of the high-tech workforce, to almost 5,000, which is 4.4%, and the participation of both men and women has increased. The proportion of women has risen to about a third of the Arab workforce in high technology, similar to the proportion of Jewish women among the Jewish workforce.
Tair Ifergan, the director of the labor branch of the Ministry of Economy, estimated that the main reason for the difference between the Arab peoples is the difference in the level of Hebrew. According to Ifergan, an important conclusion from the study is that the most orthodox engineers manage to integrate high technology “and this can also work for other people.”
According to Cohen Kovacs, there are signs that Covid-19 has stopped the positive changes that have led to the integration of women, Arabs and very ancient women in high technology. “One of the structural barriers to women’s employment in high technology that has persisted over time is the industry’s labor requirements,” Kovacs said.
