Jerusalem is doing better than it has in past years, figures from the Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research, published ahead of Jerusalem Day show.
On Wednesday, JIPR researchers presented Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion with a statistical review of the city for 2019, which showed that for the first time in a decade, the city's population loss has been checked. One out of every two haredi men in the city works for a living, and the number of secular residents is the highest it has ever been.
"The numbers we presented are very impressive, by any parameter … the city is seeing some of the fastest growth in the country," Lion said.
"The statistic showing that every second haredi man works reflects reality and contradicts the stigma that exists in Israeli society. Jerusalem is the leading, the most special, city in Israel. Nothing compares, and this is only the tip of the iceberg. I'll lead Jerusalem forward to the heights it deserves to reach in the years to come," Leon said.
The numbers concerning migration out of the city are particularly interesting. For a period of some 10 years, an average 8,000 residents left the city each year. In 2018, only 6,000 residents left. Secular residents comprise 22% of Jerusalem's population. The number of pupils in public schools stands at 282,000.
Nearly half (49%) of ultra-Orthodox men of working age are participating in the workforce, the highest percentage since records have been kept.
Not only has the number of high-tech businesses in the city grown by 33.8%, but the Jerusalem Municipality also reports that the city has seen one of the highest survival rates for high-tech businesses – 62% compared to 50% nationwide.
According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, some 927,000 people currently live in Jerusalem, compared to 200,000 prior to the 1967 Six-Day War and 83,000 at the end of the 1948 War of Independence.
Living in Jerusalem is costly, with the average cost of an apartment standing at 2.018 million shekels, compared to the national average of 1.801 million shekels. The average rent in Jerusalem is currently 3,308 shekels, also higher than the national average, which stands at 3,183 million shekels.
The population of Jerusalem is 62.1% Jewish and 37.9% Arab. The city's Jewish population has one of the highest average birth rates in the country, 4.27, compared to the average of 3.05 elsewhere in Israel. In 2017, 24,704 babies were born in Jerusalem, 15,790 Jews and 8,914 Arabs. Big families are common, with 15% of families numbering seven people or more, compared to the rest of Israel, where only 6.1% of families include seven people or more.
During the last school year, there were 78,600 elementary school children in Jerusalem, 51,800 of whom were studying in haredi educational institutions.
