Women Still One-Third of All Israeli Tech Employees

On Sunday, a 2022 report showed that women are still significantly underrepresented in the tech ecosystem in Israel, as they make up just 34% of the total workforce of the industry.

Power in Diversity is an initiative that Canadian-Israeli Alan Feld, who is Vintage Investment Partners’ founder and managing partner, established.

The report

It conducted the diversity report for the startup Israeli ecosystem for the second year in a row, which showed that even though women representation had increased slightly by 0.4% annually in 2022, the tech ecosystem is still dominated by males.

The report disclosed that there was a 6% increase in women holding jobs in management roles from 2021, as this percentage had increased to 24% from 18%.

This number was calculated through an analysis of data that had been collected from about 650 active venture-backed companies in Israel that have a workforce of at least 50 people in the country.

There are 27.8% women who hold technological positions. The report discovered that even though there was a great demand for talent and the first half of 2022 also saw extensive recruitment efforts, there were no significant changes.

The Power in Diversity initiative comprises of about 200 startups and 72 VCs. The initiative was established for bringing sidelined communities into the tech ecosystem.

These include Ethiopians, ultra-Orthodox and Arabs.

The initiative

For years, the Power in Diversity initiative has been working on helping VC funds and tech companies in recruiting employees from diverse communities.

Their aim is to help employers in overcoming inbuilt biases they might not actually be aware of. Some of the funds included in the initiative are Maor Investments, Vintage Investment Partners, Hetz Ventures, Qumra, Pitango, Elah Fund, Viola and Glilot.

A member of the steering committee of the initiative and Qumra capital’s managing partner, Sivan Shamri Dahan talked about the trend.

She said that the tech sector should make an effort to embrace women in the industry because it is a major economy propeller.

She added that changes happen with time and they were putting a plan into effect for ensuring total gender equality where employment is concerned.

She also added that Haredi and Arab women who are only a small portion of the high tech industry should be the next focus.

The tech sector

The Israeli tech sector makes up about 10% of the total workforce and contributes 25% of the country’s total income tax revenue.

It has been touted as the Israeli economy’s growth engine for a long time, but the country faces a shortage of skilled tech employees.

The latest numbers show that the total number of open positions stand at 32,900, out of which tech positions are 21,000.

Power in Diversity’s co-chairman, Kobi Samboursky, and Glilot Capital Partners’ founding partner, said that this year would not be an easy one for startups.

He said that there had been growth in the market for years, but now there are uncertain conditions and cross-industry layoffs.

He said that misrepresented populations should be addressed in such times because they are likely to suffer more.