#69 Job opportunities for graduates

If you have a skill that is needed in Israel, there are possibilities that you should explore. If you work in the hi-tech sector, don’t be put off if you don’t speak Hebrew. Most of the hi-tech companies operate totally in English.

The economy of Israel is a developed free-market economy. The prosperity of Israel’s advanced economy allows the country to have a sophisticated welfare state, a powerful modern military said to possess a nuclear-weapons capability, modern infrastructure rivaling many Western countries, and a high-technology sector competitively on par with Silicon Valley. Israel ranks 35th on the World Bank’s ease of doing business index. It has the second-largest number of startup companies in the world after the United States, and the third-largest number of NASDAQ-listed companies after the U.S. and China. American companies such as Intel,  Microsoft, and Apple built their first overseas research and development facilities in Israel. Other high-tech multi-national corporations, such as IBM, Google, Hewlett-Packard, Cisco Systems, Facebook and Motorola have opened R&D centers in the country.

The country’s major economic sectors are high-technology and industrial manufacturing. The Israeli diamond industry is one of the world’s centers for diamond cutting and polishing, amounting to 23.2% of all exports. As the country is relatively poor in natural resources, it consequently depends on imports of petroleum, raw materials, wheat, motor vehicles, uncut diamonds and production inputs. Nonetheless, the country’s nearly total reliance on energy imports may change in the future as recent discoveries of natural gas reserves off its coast, and the Israeli solar energy industry has taken a leading role in Israel’s energy sector.

Israel’s quality higher education and the establishment of a highly motivated and educated populace is largely responsible for ushering in the country’s high technology boom and rapid economic development by regional standards. The country has developed a strong educational infrastructure, and a high-quality incubation system for new cutting edge ideas to create value driven goods and services. These developments have allowed the country to create a high concentration of high-tech companies across the country’s regions. These companies are financially backed by a strong venture capital industry. Its central high technology hub, the “Silicon Wadi”, is considered second in importance only to its Californian counterpart. Numerous Israeli companies have been acquired by global corporations for their reliable and quality corporate personnel.