High-tech salaries defy slowdown

Interview  picture: thinkstock
Interview picture: thinkstock

Despite sluggishness in the economy, pay and demand for high-tech workers have risen.

Has the slowdown bypassed high-tech? In the second quarter of 2014, moderate rises were recorded in salaries and in demand for workers. The salary and demand survey by placement company CPSJOBS during the second quarter of this year indicates a rise in demand for mobile developers (5.5%) and Internet developers (5.8%), in comparison with the corresponding quarter of last year.

The survey also indicates, however, that the rising salary trend has halted in mobile development, application engineers and developers for mobile and Android, in comparison with the second quarter of last year. Application developers for mobile with two to five years experience earned NIS 18,000-25,000 monthly.

The steepest salary rises among high-tech workers in the second quarter were recorded in the category of Internet marketing, which covers content management, marketing on social networks, and campaign management, alongside a 1% rise in demand for workers in these fields. Salaries for media buyers rose 8%, and for workers in search engine optimization (SEO) salaries rose by 7%. A worker with up to two years experience earned NIS 8,000-9,000, while a worker with up to five years experience earned NIS 10,000-17,000 monthly.

Demand for software developers rose 7% in the second quarter in comparison with the corresponding quarter of last year , and salaries rose 6% in Internet development for developers in various fields such as Java, PHP, and Dot Net. The monthly salary for a beginner Dot Net developer was NIS 13,000 to NIS 17,000, while such a developer with up to five years experience earned NIS 17,000 to NIS 22,000.Demand for Internet development workers rose 5.5%. By contrast, in traditional high-tech marketing and sales fields, such as sales and product management, salary levels remained static.

"The second quarter of 2014 brought with it growth in the number of new jobs opening up in new high-tech companies that began hiring substantially after completing fund raising rounds," says CPSJOBS CEO Ofra Afgin-Hadad, "We see a trend of revival in demand, mainly for software developers, Internet developers, and in Internet marketing."

Decline in QA

In quality assurance (QA), there was a decline in demand and pay, although there was demand for experienced inspectors, who enjoyed a 3% rise in salary levels. The companies prefer more experienced QA teams, in comparison with the profile of those recruited in the corresponding quarter of last year, when demand was for junior inspectors.

In hardware, salary levels are stable. The negative demand trend that started with the waves of layoffs in 2013 halted in the first half of 2014, but there was no increase in demand for hardware workers in the second quarter, and salaries for hardware project managers fell by 15%, and those for machine engineers fell 17%. Alongside this, salaries for experienced algorithm engineers rose 10%, and senior RF engineers with management experience saw a rise in salary levels of 5%.

The main surge in demand across all high-tech sectors is in Big Data. The requirement for gathering and analyzing information now applies across the entire high-tech spectrum, resulting in demand for web developers, analysts, and developers of algorithms for automated data analysis. An experienced developer in Big Data can earn 25% more than in other fields.

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on June 17, 2014

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2013

Interview  picture: thinkstock
Interview picture: thinkstock
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