The demand for high-tech engineers has fallen again. The number of software engineer vacancies decreased by 6% in Israel, from 5,820 in April to 5,470 in May, marking a significant 62% decrease compared to the peak of 14,250 vacancies recorded in February 2022.
The overall number of engineering vacancies decreased by 5%, from 9,420 positions in April to 8,950 in May 2023, compared to over 18,000 vacancies at the beginning of the previous year.
While in recent months it had seemed that the decline in demand for high-tech employees was slowing up, May witnessed a new low. These figures are based on data from the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics.
The decline in demand for workers in May was observed across various manual labor roles, including non-professional jobs with low wages. There was a 3% decrease for bartenders and waiters, 5% for cooks, 5% for salespeople, 5% for security guards, and 5% for nursing care workers.
The number of overall vacancies continues to fall, experiencing a 2.5% decrease from 126,700 in May to 123,700 in June. For the first time since February 2021, during the days of the third Corona lockdown in Israel, the vacancy rate has fallen below 4.0% and now stands at 3.9%.
The assumption is that the drop in the number of vacancies indicates an increasing matching between the employment supply and the skills of the workers. The increase in the number of vacancies in 2022 helped moderate the rise in employment and the decrease in unemployment. Now, the decrease in the number of vacancies is assisting in preventing a decrease in employment and a rise in unemployment. However, if the economy experiences a significant slowdown, this may not be sufficient.
In June, the unemployment rate and the employment rate remained unchanged compared to the previous month. The employment rate in June was the same as in May at 3.5%, which translates to 158,000. This is an impressively low unemployment rate.
