The average wage in Israel continued to rise, and stood at NIS11,004 in July, which represents an increase of 3.4% over the year before. While this is good news for the Israeli economy as a whole, most of the increase took place in the field of high tech, where the intersection of the shortage of workers with well-funded companies has resulted in a rapid increase in salaries in the sector. That increase seemed to have slowed slightly during the last two months, compared to earlier in the year. However, 66.5% of Israel’s overall workforce work in fields that pay below the average wage. Altogether, 3,812,000 employees reported salaries in July.
The average salary in high tech today is NIS 22,000 per month. Just behind high tech workers are employees in banks and insurance companies, who earn NIS 20,500 shekels per month, on average. Taking into account 5.9% inflation, government workers in defense, local administrations, and national insurance saw their salaries go down, and averaged NIS 15,500 per month.
On the lower levels of the salary scale are service and restaurant workers, who averaged NIS 5,140 per month. The average salaries of Healthcare workers were NIS 9,680 per month. Workers in education today also draw salaries below the national average and earn NIS 9,106 per month, on average.
The statistics cited above illustrate one of the continued challenges faced by the Israeli economy. While employees in high tech are doing very well by world standards, those working in services and education are making much lower salaries. These numbers reflect gross salary totals and not net pay — which translates into a teacher making $2,600 a month, or under $30,000 a year. Keep in mind that the cost of living in the Tel Aviv area is as high, or higher than, the cost of living in the New York or San Francisco area.
