Commuting in cities refers to the residents who work outside their locality of residence. The phenomenon is particularly prominent among residents of satellite towns, adjacent to major cities and employment centers and serving their residents as “bedroom towns.” Residents of major cities (or cities that are far from employment centers), however, are usually not commuting. Of the largest cities in Israel, Jerusalem is second only to Eilat in the proportion of employed persons working outside the city, with 11% of employed persons working outside Jerusalem. Other cities that serve as cores for the metropolitan areas in Israel also have a relatively low proportion of employed persons working outside the city, but higher compared to Jerusalem – Haifa and Beer-Sheva with 31%, and Tel Aviv with 35%.
In contrast, the proportion of employed persons in the cities near Tel Aviv and Haifa is significantly higher, and even higher than that of the cities adjacent to Jerusalem. While among the residents of Beit Shemesh (39% of the employed persons working outside) and Beitar Illit (43%) the percentage is moderate (It should be noted that there is no figure for Ma’aleh Adumim or other localities in the Jerusalem area), in much of the cities around Tel Aviv, most of the employed persons living in the city are commuters – Givatayim with 79%, Bat Yam with 75%, Ramat Gan (69% ), Holon (68%) and Rishon-Lezion (60%). Most of the employees residing in Modi’in (73%), located between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, also work outside the city.
Of the 31,000 employed persons living in Jerusalem and working outside the city, approximately 6,200 work in the Tel Aviv District, approximately 4,300 work in the Central District, and 3,300 work in Judea and Samaria. In the opposite direction, about 36,300 people from Judea and Samaria come to work in Jerusalem; about 20,600 commute to Jerusalem from localities in the Jerusalem District near the capital, and 14,700 from the Central District come to work in the city. Overall, about 81,000 of the employed workers in Jerusalem come from other localities.
All the data is from the Central Bureau of Statistics’ Local Authorities File for 2017.
