Jordan Daily – Almost 70 percent of Israeli startups have taken steps to relocate parts of their operations outside Israel due to misgivings over the government’s planned judicial overhaul. The figure comes from a survey by the Start-Up Nation Central non-profit seeking to gauge the economic impact of the contentious reforms.
Start-Up Nation Central CEO say “concerning trends like registering a company abroad or launching new startups outside Israel will be hard to reverse.”
Israel’s world famous tech sector is one of the country’s major growth drivers, accounting for 15 percent of economic output, upward to 50 percent of exports and 25 percent of tax income.
While typically reluctant to comment on Israeli politics, many tech CEOs have in recent weeks criticized the reforms to the judiciary that’s being pushed through the parliament by the rightist coalition headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Earlier this year, some 80 percent of business leaders in the Israeli high tech sector reported meeting cancellations by investors due to the overhaul.
The survey published on Sunday canvassed employees of over 500 Israeli high tech companies; 68 percent of the respondents said their companies “have begun taking active legal and financial steps, like withdrawing cash reserves, changing HQ location outside Israel, relocation of employees and conducting layoffs.”
