Ashdodruns on a handful of strong industries. If you’re job-hunting or weighing a move, here’s where the opportunities (and the big-name employers) are.
Top industries & employers
Ports, shipping and logistics
The Port of Ashdod, the Hadarom container terminal (a Terminal Investment Limited subsidiary), and the freight-forwarding and customs sector around them
Israel's largest port by cargo, handling roughly 60% of the country's port traffic, with a new semi-automated container terminal built for the largest ships afloat. Maritime, customs, terminal operations and logistics employ at real scale and much of the work runs in English.
Energy, refining and chemicals
The Eshkol power station, the Ashdod oil refinery, and the potash and chemicals terminals at the port
The industrial zones beside the port make Ashdod one of Israel's heavy-industry centres. It is a substantial technical employer — process, chemical, mechanical and safety engineering — and it is also why the northern edge of the city is an industrial rather than a residential aspect.
Manufacturing and food production
Three industrial zones adjacent to the port, spanning food, plastics, metals and packaging
Ashdod's port location and cheap industrial land made it a manufacturing city from the start. It remains one of the larger blue-collar and technician job markets in central Israel, distinct from the Tel Aviv service economy 32 km up the coast.
Healthcare
Assuta Ashdod Medical Center
Ashdod had no hospital at all until 2017, when Assuta Ashdod opened with about 300 beds after a government tender. It is now one of the city's largest employers and the reason residents no longer travel to Rehovot or Ashkelon for inpatient care.
Municipal and public services
Ashdod Municipality, the education network, the absorption and community services
A city of nearly 230,000 with a very large immigrant intake runs a correspondingly large public sector — schools, absorption services, welfare and municipal administration are a major employer, and roles working with Russian-, French- or Amharic-speaking residents are frequently open to bilingual newcomers.
Culture and the arts
The Israeli Andalusian Orchestra Ashdod, the Ashdod Museum of Art (the MonArt centre), the city's performance venues
Ashdod invested unusually heavily in cultural institutions for a port city, and the Andalusian Orchestra — playing the Judeo-Moroccan repertoire the city's founding community brought with it — is a national institution based here rather than in Tel Aviv.
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