About 10,000 Israeli tech workers have been laid off since the start of the year, and many now face fierce competition for every opening. The article says the wave is being driven mainly by a sharp fall in the dollar, which raises the cost of employing Israelis for companies fundraising in foreign currency, and by the growing shift of budgets toward AI tools that can replace human labor.
One laid-off developer, Daniel Hollander, said his wife is now the family’s only earner and that he is ready to take almost any job. “I’m at a crossroads and need to bring money home. I’ll work even in a supermarket if I have to, there’s no choice,” he said after being dismissed about two months ago from Xyte. He said that on LinkedIn he is competing with 500 to 1,000 applicants for each role.
The layoffs are not only hitting junior workers. Avital Weisinger, who lost her job at Wix after five years, said her manager asked to meet, then told her to come immediately after she tried to delay, which is when she realized she was being let go. Wix announced about a month ago that it would cut nearly 1,000 employees, or 20% of its workforce, as part of a broad efficiency effort. Tomer Schwartz, laid off from Prismaphotonics, said AI can replace many things, but not someone who uses a system all day and understands the next user’s experience.
Wix founder and CEO Avishai Abrahami told employees in a memo that the AI shift is “the most significant change in how companies are built since the invention of modern programming languages in the 1970s.” He said firms that adopt it will build faster and create things the previous generation could not imagine. Meanwhile, job seekers say the market is brutal, with hundreds or even thousands of candidates for each post, and industry groups are trying to help through recruiting events and platforms like Navina’s speed-dating event and Rebuild.il.
