The year 2024 has just begun, it seems that the high-tech sector is moving in a negative direction. Just since the beginning of this month, more than 1,000 workers in various companies have been laid off in Israel, 550 of them from Solaredge - the well-known solar energy solutions provider, whose stock has fallen by 67 percent since the beginning of 2023.
At the same time, the cyber company Orca Security embarked on a general layoff process and laid off, as of writing These ranks, 60 employees in Israel, 15 percent of its workforce.
Other companies such as Trigo, the digital bank One Zero, the gaming company Unity, the unicorn "Sysense" and even the computing company HP - all laid off dozens of their employees in Israel since the beginning of January.
The high-tech protest from about a year ago.
Israeli high-tech entered the war already shaky // Photo: Or Adar
It seems that the wave of local layoffs joins a global trend of cutbacks and restructuring carried out by, among other things, huge profitable companies.
As a reminder, since January 10, over 1,000 employees, most of them from the US, have been laid off at Google, when according to CEO Sundar Pichai, the employees must prepare for another round of cuts that will come later this year.
According to various publications, the same wave of layoffs will also affect the company's Israeli employees.
At the same time, the "Iron Swords" war that started last October made the situation in Israel many times more complicated.
Alongside the intensification of the problems that already existed in the local high-tech market, the war led to clear difficulties in attracting foreign investment, as well as to a lack of quality and skilled personnel, many of whom went into long-term reserves.
Solaredge - a leader in the field of solar energy that fell in 2023, photo: Reuters
From difficulty, high-tech moved to survival
Following the dire situation and in order to deal with the problem of foreign investors, a significant "incentive package" for Israeli high-tech was approved about a week ago at the government meeting (as part of the 2024 budget), designed to support high-tech during the war and also to respond to the challenges it has faced in recent years.
As part of this, the Innovation Authority announced the establishment of the "Initiative 2.0 Fund", the purpose of which is to encourage Israeli institutional investors, such as pension funds, to invest in local high-tech companies.
The fund will invest "side by side" with Israeli institutional investors in Israeli venture capital funds.
Many of the high-tech workers were drafted into the reserves which have been going on for almost four months now.
Archive, photo: IDF spokesman
Also within the budget, an addition of approximately NIS 200 million was approved to the high-speed channel launched by the Innovation Authority at the end of October to assist start-up companies that were in financial distress following the postponement or cancellation of recruitment rounds due to the war.
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