Gili, (a pseudonym), a product manager at a startup for six years, has been looking for a new job for six months with no success. "The organizational culture doesn't feel healthy to me. We're about 150 people, but the atmosphere feels like a corporation. There’s too much management and too little understanding of the details and the business. Additionally, there's no investment in employees and I don't feel personal professional development or managerial support at the level I would like," she says. However, because the job market is so poor right now, Gili has remained at her current job.

Whereas in 2020, the job market was favorable for jobseekers, now it has shifted to favor employers. This is due to a combination of a global economic crisis, Israel’s domestic political crisis, and now Israel’s war in Gaza, all of which have led to a decline in funding, mass layoffs, and hiring freezes. The number of employees in the high-tech industry shrank last year to the average level of 2022, and shrank further in January due to another wave of global layoffs. Thousands of industry workers were sent home. Even companies that are hiring do so sparingly, and the number of open positions remains small while the number of applicants for each position is only growing.

"There are very few jobs. As a product manager, the requirements are usually very specific, and with the lack of options, it's difficult to find a company that will hire you," says Gili, who is looking for supportive management with an interest in fostering the growth of its employees above all. "It's very difficult to find quality direct management. Not everyone can truly manage people, and I hope that elsewhere there will be managers who understand that they are there primarily to enable their employees to grow."

Like Gili, there are many other employees in the high-tech industry who stay at their jobs despite being dissatisfied. While, in the past, they could easily find another job with similar or even more pay, now, in a situation of uncertainty and a lower chance of a salary increase, more employees stay, and grow resentful.

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