High-tech employees account for 8.7% of Israel’s workforce, according to data presented by the Israel Innovation Authority, up from 8.3% in 2017.

At mid-2019, the number of salaried tech workers reached 307,000, the authority said in a statement. In absolute terms, the number of tech industry employees grew by some 19,000, despite a drop of some 3,000 in the field of drug manufacturing mainly due to cost-cutting steps at Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., the statement said.

The software industry, where some 14,000 employees were added, is responsible for a large part of the increase.

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“High-tech employment is characterized by high productivity and high wages, so it is of great importance to increase the number of employees out of the total number of employees in the economy,” the statement said.

The rise in employment levels in the tech field reflects the high demand for workers in the sector, and has been made possible by a number of steps the government has taken to increase the supply of highly skilled human capital, including training such sidelined populations as the Arabs, the ultra-Orthodox and more women, the statement said.

The authority is also working to encourage startups to grow in Israel and multinationals to expand their activities locally beyond just setting up R&D centers, in order for them to employ more people.