The high-tech industry continued to prosper in the first half of 2014, with demand for employees, especially engineers, rising by over 16%, compared with the corresponding period in 2013. Available jobs reached a 10-year peak. The figures were compiled by high-tech placement company Ethosia Human Resources.

2013 was replete with exits, with technology and biotechnology companies reporting impressive growth and sales turnovers, and some companies being sold to huge foreign companies for hundreds of millions of dollars. These figures offer encouragement for 2014. "It's clear that the 2013 results were not the only thing pushing up the market," said Ethosia CEO Eyal Solomon. "The positive mood prevailing in the US capital market and the successful offerings on Nasdaq, the dramatic fall in the unemployment rates, the weakening of the dollar and other currencies against the shekel, and the drop in the government budget deficit beyond the government's most optimistic forecast were also important. These, and other positive factors, are enabling the market to reach levels of demand for employees unseen since 2004, which signaled the end of the recession that began in 2001, with confidence on the part of investors in the Israeli economy."

Many exceptional deals were recorded in the first half of 2014, including the sale of Viber to Japanese company Rakuten for the enormous sum of $900 million. This deal embodies the growing upward trend in interest in Israeli high tech in the Asian market. Other important news included the signing by Intel of an estimated $20 billion investment program for its Kiryat Gat facility, which will add another 1,000 employees to the company's staff in Israel.

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on July 1, 2014

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