Pictured Above: Typing on a computer keyboard. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

(JNS.org) The online retail giant Amazon is reportedly in the midst of a massive hiring spree in Israel and is offering unusually high salaries to attract top high-tech talent to its new Tel Aviv-based research and development (R&D) center. 

Some reports state that Amazon has offered prospective hires salaries as high as NIS 100,000 ($28,180) per month, and is typically offering salaries of around NIS 60,000 ($16,900) per month with additional bonuses, in its bid to lure programmers.

Top programmers in Israel can already earn about NIS 40,000 ($11,370) per month, which is approximately four times the average Israeli salary, according to the Jewish state’s Central Bureau of Statistics. 

The average Israeli high-tech employee earns around NIS 21,000 ($5,940) per month.

Amazon’s headhunting is creating pressure on local Israeli technology firms to retain their top employees, as the country’s high-tech sector is already suffering from a shortage of programmers and engineers. 

The opening of Amazon’s new R&D center in Tel Aviv in October came after the company’s CEO Jeff Bezos embarked on a secret visit to Israel last December. Following Bezos’s visit, Amazon completed two massive Tel Aviv real estate deals in July to set up its offices.

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