Tribune de Genève.
According to September data recently published by the canton’s statistics office Ocstat, Geneva had a population of 494,666 by the end of September 2016.
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Tribune de Genève said the symbolic bar of half a million will without a doubt be reached in the coming months, before qualifying its prediction saying it will depend on the pace of growth.
In 2015, the canton’s population grew by 8,033 or 1.7%. During the first quarter of 2016, growth slowed to 576 people. Second quarter growth was also slow at 1,052. Then in the third quarter it took off again with a rise of 2,460, the fastest quarterly rise since 2007, representing an annualised growth rate of 2%. Ocstat said that most of the recent growth was from immigration.
At the end of 2015, 41% of Geneva’s population was foreign. 27% of foreigners were from one of 28 EU countries, with the largest numbers coming from Portugal (37k or 7.5% of total population), France (31k or 6.3%) and Italy (21k or 4.3%). These three romance-language-speaking groups together made up 18% of Geneva’s total population.
With only 5,334 more people required to reach the half million mark, another quarter like the third of 2016 would almost do it. Growth similar to the second quarter of 2016 and it would take over a year to get there.
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