The Economy and Industry Ministry and the Innovation Authority are trying to prod high-tech companies into launching internships for employees that lack experience in the sector, Israel Hayom has learned.
To facilitate the program, the government will be distributing grants to companies that open internship positions to new graduates.
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According to a report on the status of human resources in Israel's high-tech sector for 2018, published by the Innovation Authority and Start-Up Nation Central, one of the sector's main challenges is in integrating university graduates into technical jobs and development roles.
The report indicated that 41% of Israeli high-tech firms that participated in the survey said that in the first half of 2018, they had not hired employees with no work experience.
To address this issue, an internship model has been designed for newly-hired graduates. The government hopes to incentivize high-tech companies to make new positions available to potentials employees with newly-minted degrees.
In addition to opening a door for academically qualified but inexperienced workers, the program hopes to address the problem of a lack of experienced manpower the sector faces.
Every company that participates in the program may take on two to 10 new employees. They will receive grants in accordance with the number of new hires, and the money will be available for a period of 18 months.
To be eligible for one of these internship positions, a candidate must be a resident of Israel, age 18 or over, and hold a BA or an engineering qualification in the computer science, computer engineering, programming, or electronic engineering.
Recently, the number of positions in Israeli high-tech surpassed 300,000 to reach 307,000 people directly employed in the sector.
High-tech now accounts for 8.9% of the Israeli labor market, compared to 8.3% in January 2018. In the past five years, high-tech exports approached 50% of Israel's total exports.
The internship program is slated to launch as a pilot in October 2021. Once the pilot is complete, the Innovation Authority will decide if and how to keep it going.
Meanwhile, the sector is suffering from a lack of experienced workers. According to a 2017 report from the Innovation Authority, there were 2.5 as many positions opened as there were qualified applicants.
In the past two years, a number of high-tech firms have taken the reins into their own hands and, without waiting for government backing, initiated courses to provide rapid, focused training for existing and potential employees.
As of June 2018, there were 15,000 open high-tech positions in Israel, compared to 12,000 in 2017, according to a report published in December 2018 that surveyed 362 Israeli high-tech firms that employ 82,000 workers.
