Figures shows brain drain spiked in 2023-2024 as well-educated fled overhaul, war

Well-educated, highly skilled Israelis moved abroad in increased numbers in recent years, draining the country of engineers, tech personnel, and physicians, a new study by Tel Aviv University has found, underscoring deeper concerns about the future main growth engine of the economy.

A total of about 90,000 Israelis left the country from January 2023 to September 2024, including hundreds of PhDs and medical doctors and thousands of engineers, according to research compiled by senior economists Prof. Itai Ater, Prof. Nittai Bergman, and Doron Zamir at Tel Aviv University.

The trio based their findings on data from the Central Bureau of Statistics, the Population and Immigration Authority, and the Israel Tax Authority. They publicized their research last month in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, though the findings have not been published in an academic setting.

The numbers are the latest to show a marked increase in emigration for much of 2023, as government plans to overhaul the judiciary led to mass protests and raised fundamental questions regarding the stability of foundational institutions, driving investment away and leading to some businesses relocating abroad.

According to the authors, the outflow of Israeli citizens led to a loss of an estimated NIS 1.5 billion ($461 million) in income taxes for the government, not including VAT or corporate tax.

“The fact that so many engineers, physicians, and academics are leaving is a major sign of concern and poses a strategic threat to the future of Israel, if this wave continues,” Ater, economics professor at Tel Aviv University’s Coller School of Management, told The Times of Israel. “Israel is a country with few natural resources and is dependent on quality human capital, and without the knowledge and expertise of the people driving high-tech innovation, academia, and healthcare, the economy will not be able to continue to prosper and everything will collapse.”

The tech sector accounts for about a fifth of Israel’s gross domestic product (GDP), more than half of exports, and about a quarter of total state revenues generated from salaried employee income taxes and company taxation. High-tech employees account for about 11.4% of the Israeli workforce, according to data by the Israel Innovation Authority.

The high-tech sector’s contribution to the Israeli economy stems in large part from taxes paid by the workers in the sector, and hence a wave of tech employees and academics departing will affect state revenues and the entire Israeli economy.

From the beginning of the war with the Hamas terror group on October 7, 2023, through July 2024, the number of high-tech employees who departed Israel for long-term relocation increased and stood at about 8,300 people, or about 2.1 percent of the local high-tech workforce, according to a separate report by the Israel Innovation Authority.

In the immediate aftermath of the October 7 onslaught, the number of tech employees relocating doubled and reached 1,207 individuals per month before moderating to an average of 826 a month during the first half of 2024. In the months preceding October 7, departures increased to 571 high-tech employees per month, up from an average of less than 500 per month in May to December 2022.

The outflow during 2023 and much of 2024 far outpaced the annual average of 25,000 emigrants last decade, the report by the Tel Aviv University senior economists showed.

According to the authors, 50,000 Israelis departed in 2023, and another 40,000 left from January 2024 to September of that year, according to the latest available data.

Ater clarified that the joint research only included Israelis who had been in the country for at least three years in order to exclude those who moved to the country to flee the Russian invasion of Ukraine starting in February 2022 but subsequently left.

A recent report compiled by the Knesset Research and Information Center, based on CBS data and including those Israelis as well, showed that an all-time high of 82,800 Israelis left the country in 2023.

Data analysis by the Tel Aviv University economists found that over 75% of Israelis leaving the country were under the age of 40. It also found that high-wage earners made up a third of emigrees in recent years, but in previous years they had only represented a quarter of those leaving annually.

Among Israelis moving abroad between January 2023 and September 2024 were 19,000 university graduates, higher than the approximately 6,000 emigrees with at least a bachelor’s degree who left annually from 2019 to 2022.

The exiting Israelis included 633 people holding PhDs in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields, while 3,000 emigrees over the 20-month period were engineers, the report’s data found. That’s up from the 285 PhD holders and 1,039 engineers who left the country in 2022.

Among health professionals, over 400 doctors moved abroad in 2023, and the figure was eclipsed in the first eight months of 2024, continuing a multi-year trend that has seen rising numbers of doctors leave each year since 2020. The figure adds to concern about Israel’s healthcare system as the government struggles to address a critical shortage of medical personnel in the country.

Ater blamed the brain drain on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, using the data to urge Israelis to vote against the current leadership when elections are held, currently scheduled for October 2026.

“The data shows that more Israelis are leaving, and we are also seeing that fewer people are coming back,” said Ater. “A change of leadership in the next elections will be crucial for a change in the trend and a return of Israelis.”

He reckoned that the trend had likely continued through 2025, blaming the war in Gaza and public discontent over the unequal burden of mandatory military service, as the government moves to pass legislation exempting Haredi men and women from serving.

A continued departure of Israelis could ignite a negative cycle, which risks turning Israel into countries that suffered from brain drain, such as Lebanon, Venezuela, South Africa, or Argentina, Ater predicted.

“Without a change in the leadership, we could see a much larger spike in Israelis emigrating, posing a strategic threat to Israel’s developed and prosperous economy,” he said.