The population stands at about 250,000, with over half below the age of 30 and with a very high level of education. Available statistics, which show employment at about 72,000, fail to reflect the significant number of employees on involuntary furlough due to low levels of capacity utilization in the city's enterprises. Today, this City of Tomorrow, as Sumgait was termed, has become seriously polluted from its aluminum and steel plants, its chemical processing facilities, and unstemmed, untreated agricultural and municipal runoff. These significant environmental problems are barriers to the area's human and economic development. The Azerbaijani Government, in cooperation with international financial support and foreign investment entities, is working to improve environmental conditions and ensure that development of Azerbaijan's oil and gas reserves will generate revenue and support for other local industries, including those in Sumgait.
Additional opportunities exist in textiles and food processing.
Its location on the Caspian Sea is advantageous for regional exports. There is also a growing domestic market for oil-related production and a domestic consumer goods and food market that will grow as oil revenues create spending power. Weaknesses include low levels of capacity utilization, legal inadequacies and tax and regulatory constraints, a shortage of management skills, a small domestic consumer goods market, outdated technology and a lack of funds for new technologies and equipment, plus a high level of pollution. As first steps toward addressing the environmental situation, Azerbaijan's federal government and the Sumgait local government have shut down Sumgait's worst offending facilities, pending the installation of more efficient processes. Plans are in place for upgrading and expanding the city's municipal wastewater treatment facilities.