Matam High-Tech Park at the southern entrance to Haifa is the largest and oldest technology park in Israel. Photo: Zvi Roger / Wikimedia Commons.
CTech – The Central Bureau of Statistics published a special study aimed at evaluating the expectations of the high-tech sector in Israel, which allows to make a clear statement: despite the suspension and the speech of a tire, the high technology of Israel remains to be expected.
According to the survey, 51 percent of technology companies responded that they expect to increase the activity in the coming year. In addition, only one-tenth of companies responded that they expect a real reduction in activity. In other words, apart from the alarming information and reports of a significant slowdown in the US and Europe, about 90 percent of the companies that responded do not expect a reduction in activity. In addition, 37 percent of companies reported that they do not expect a significant change in operations in the coming year.
The study examined the expectations of specialized companies in the high-tech sector in terms of five main areas (operations, employment, wages, debt and capital formation) and by using a comparison between high-tech services (computers, computer consultants. , information services and R&D) and technological industries (pharmaceuticals, computers, electronics and special equipment) , aircraft manufacturing, etc.).
The study showed that the expectation in the service sector (where there is currently a lot of technological activity, both in terms of employees and sales) is higher than in the industrial sector. . About 52 percent of service companies expected an increase, compared to 38 percent in industry. In addition, the expectation in the high-tech sector is much higher compared to the rest of the economy, where only 30 percent reported the expectation of increased activity.
In the study it shows that there is also good hope for the problems of employees: More than 40 percent of the technology companies interviewed answered that they expect to hire more employees in the coming year, compared to 17 percent who believed that the number of new people. workers will be reduced.
When you look at this figure by sector, you can see that in the sector of high-tech industries 29 percent expect a decrease in employment, which is more uncertain than the sector of services (17 percent) . At the same time, outside the high-tech sector, the expected decrease in employment is even lower (9 percent), and about half of the companies answered that they would not expect a change.
In terms of salaries, more than 56 percent of technology companies believe that they will increase next year, if in this case there is no difference between services and industry. In addition, only 2 percent of technology companies reported that they expect to reduce salaries in the coming year. For the whole sector of the economy, companies are expecting an increase in wages (about 45 percent reported the expectation of an increase in wages), which seems to be based on the background of rising prices in last year. The expected reduction in wages in other sectors of the economy is similar to high technology and is only 2 percent.
The results about debt are not surprising and should not worry the Bank of Israel, and most of the economy is not expecting major changes. In terms of raising capital, 42 percent of technology companies expect an increase, compared to 15 percent of companies in other sectors of the economy. In the sector of high-tech services, the group of companies expects a capital increase of 42 percent, compared to the sector of industry which recorded a single digit. In addition, the percentage of companies in the service sector that reported a decrease in the expected financing is nothing.
