Will Pay Limits for Israeli Bankers Spark Mass Exodus?
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
Israel’s parliament has effectively capped salaries for bankers at $655,000, raising fears that the best minds in the money business will flee the sector for industries with no such limits.
The new Knesset law was designed to soothe public anger over income inequality but has sparked fears of a mass exodus at a time when jittery world financial markets call for experienced hands, Bloomberg reports.
“I hope the law won’t prompt the early retirement of key people at the banks all at once,” Bank of Israel Governor Karnit Flug said at a news conference in Jerusalem on Sunday, the news agency reported. “It’s preferable that such processes be gradual.”
The law, passed March 28, practically limits bankers’ individual salaries to 2.5 million shekels. That’s a healthy 20 times the average Israeli wage, but is less than a third of what CEO’s at the two biggest banks raked in last year.
It may already be having an impact. The head of Hapoalim, Israel’s largest bank, last week said he will quit to seek new business challenges.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
