This week I reported about a relatively new Facebook page entitled וידויי שכר (“viduay sachar“; English lit.: “salary confessions”.)
It fields anonymous report from random Israelis asking them how much they year and reports back the findings to its Facebook page.
The site is another resources for Israelis attempting to discern their value in the job market, with Glassdoor and the annually published salary surveys from major HR recruiters already providing a pool of useful data.
The page has received some good media coverage in Hebrew although, to date, it has been mostly undiscovered among English-speaking immigrants in Israel.
In coming weeks, the page’s operators affirmed that the website intends beginning a round of outreach to Israel’s sizeable English-speaking community.
As the page becomes better known among ‘Anglos,’ it will be interesting to see what kind of data points can be collected, and how those will compare with salaries reported by tsabrim (native-born Israelis).
The site—which currently only consists of a Facebook page—collects salary information via a Google Form and insists that those sharing data include a pay stub for verification. However, personally identifiable information about those sharing the data points are never publicly disclosed. The page operator told me that reports received via any other method are immediately deleted.
Although posters are precluded from self-identifying or naming (and perhaps shaming) their employers, they are permitted to share some details about themselves that might make their point of origin identifiable.
The page has already stimulated intense discussion among English-speakers for the wide range of salaries it showcases — and some of the staggering salaries being paid to young 20-something graduates of the Israel Defense Forces’ various technologically-focused units.
The Page Highlights Some Of The Enormous Pay Gaps In The Israeli Job Market
Salaries disclosed include a salary of 36,000 NIS / month paid to a software engineer with 5.5 years’ experience and a Labor Manager being paid 26,500 NIS / month (salaries in Israel are quoted in shekels per month; all figures cited here are gross).
As the page lays bare, there are extremely significant pay gaps within today’s Israel. This march the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) —Israel’s national statistics arbiter — announced that the country’s national salary stood at 12,470 NIS. At today’s exchange rate that equated to $47,168 and €40,577 in US dollars and Euro respectively.
However, rates of pay in the ‘high tech’ sector are so much higher that the CBS collates a separate pay index which—according to my calculations – almost exceeds the national average by 250%.
In March, Globes reported that the “high tech” average salary stood at 31,525 NIS. According to those same FX rates, that equates to $119,244 and €102,577 respectively. That the national average within “high tech” stands at more than six figures in both the dollar and the euro is a rather eye-opening fact that—as far as I can tell—has not been reported on in English. (“High tech” generally refers to any company whose main differentiator is the state of its technology or some technology it is bringing to market. In other countries, the sector is typically called IT.)
Those enormous differences in remuneration are made clear by the page. This week’s reports, for instance, contained the rather sad story of a news editor with 6.5 years’ experience earning 45 NIS per hour ($14.25). A student R&D developer, however, also paid hourly, was able to command a rate of pay of 60 NIS ($19).
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Daniel Rosehill is a technology writer and marketing communications (MarCom) professional based in Jerusalem. Originally from Cork, in Ireland, Daniel’s diverse set of interests include Linux and open source technology; backups and disaster recovery (and naturally, digital prepping); and language-learning and travelling.