To Remain a Startup Nation, Israel Needs Skilled Manpower at All Levels

Ma’ariv, Israel, April 27

While many workers in Israel are still furloughed or left unemployed, there is an acute shortage of about 13,000 workers in the high-tech industry and its various branches. The shortage is so significant that many companies, facing complete despair in their search for talent, began outsourcing jobs abroad. In a reality where we are getting used to remote control of home appliances, coffee machines and even water facilities, many “traditional” industries are becoming more technological and require more and more skilled manpower in various technology industries. The great shortage of skilled manpower in Israel stems first and foremost from the fact that both workers and companies have become accustomed to seeing these industries as requiring full academic education when, for many high-tech jobs, such credentials are unnecessary at all. A software programmer can deal with most of the complex tasks required today in the technology industries, and the path to his or her training is much faster than that of a credentialed software engineer. As the world becomes more technological, it is important to rethink our education system and design flexible training programs that respond to real-time market needs. There will always be a need for academics, there’s no doubt about that. But we must also ensure that our workforce is operating at full capacity. This change is required, but it will only be done with the encouragement of the government. The way to push it forward is to target studies to those areas where professional working hands are needed, with the technological field at the forefront. The more we learn about using our existing infrastructure to create training programs tailored to the needs of the economy, the more successful we will be at cutting down unemployment. This move also requires a change in the attitude of citizens. Graduates of practical engineering studies at technological colleges complete their studies with a profession that is no less lucrative and sometimes even more so than that of a significant proportion of academic graduates. Therefore, the various fields of study must be examined not in accordance with their academic prestige, but in accordance with the chances of their graduates successfully integrating into the labor market. If we want the State of Israel to continue to be a startup nation, we must understand that this requires skilled manpower at all levels. In order to achieve this, training must be promoted that will enable the fulfillment of the existing shortage of technological workers, as well as the expansion of the industry that is the locomotive of growth of the Israeli economy. Israel can continue to be the innovative nation it is; but only if we allow the training of enough up-and-coming workers. – Dr. Yochi Pinchasi Adiv, head of Israel’s Vocational Colleges Forum (translated by Asaf Zilberfarb)