By YAIR ASSAF-SHAPIRAEmployment-population ratio in Israel and in large cities, 2015(photo credit: JERUSALEM INSTITUTE FOR POLICY RESEARCH)
In 2015 (the last year for which data are available), a total of 321,000 men and women were employed in Jerusalem. Although Jerusalem is Israel’s most populous city, the number of people employed in the city is smaller than the figure for Tel Aviv-Jaffa, which has a total of 406,700 employees. Haifa has a total of 176,600, and for Israel as a whole the total is 3,653,800.A city’s workforce is a source of economic power. Workplaces pay relatively high municipal taxes, and people employed in the city spend money there, thus in effect creating more employment opportunities. Construction of office buildings and other workplaces also generates revenues for the city through levies and fees.Might we conclude, therefore, that the economic power provided by people employed in Jerusalem is less than that provided by those employed in Tel Aviv-Jaffa and greater than in Haifa? Not necessarily, because the population of Jerusalem is twice that of Tel Aviv and three times that of Haifa. In other words, the economic power generated by workplaces in Jerusalem serves a much larger number of residents. To assess the economic power derived from places of employment in relation to population, we calculated the ratios between a city’s employed people (who are not necessarily all residents) and the city’s population.The employment-population ratio in Jerusalem stood at 374 employees for every 1,000 residents of the city. This is significantly lower than the figures for Tel Aviv (947) and Haifa (635), which serve as centers of employment for large, densely populated metropolitan areas. A comparison with other major cities reveals that Jerusalem’s ratio is higher than that of Rishon Lezion (362) and Ashdod (333), but lower than that of Petah Tikva (522), Beersheba (445) and Netanya (405).Jerusalem’s low ratio results from relatively low rates of participation in the workforce among certain population groups, a relatively small number of workplaces in the city, and the difficulty of attracting people to work in the city.At the same time, it appears that since 2010 Jerusalem’s employment- population ratio has increased. In 1995, 2000 and 2005 it stood at 332, 329, and 331, respectively, then rose to 343 in 2010 and, as noted, to 374 in 2015. As we know, Jerusalem’s population is not declining in size, and the ratio is increasing because new workplaces are opening at a faster rate than the population is increasing.Translated by Merav Datan.