Tourism employment continues to rise, with August registrations up 5.1% on a year ago

Tourism employment now accounts for 13.5% of total employment in the national economy, which as a whole grew by 2.8% in that month. Compared to August 2019, the pre-pandemic benchmark, tourism employment growth is also 5.1%.

For the acting Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism, Héctor Gómez, "the performance of tourism employment this summer has been extraordinary, we have far exceeded the figures for August 2022 and the pre-pandemic figures; these are figures that show that tourism is the great engine of the Spanish economy and it is worth celebrating that it is improving employment day by day with more specialised and higher quality jobs. But we are not satisfied. We will continue to work for not only more jobs, but better and better jobs.

Increases in salaried employees

In June, the increase in absolute terms was 134,836 new contributors compared to the same month in the previous year. This growth affects all areas of tourism activity.

While in hotels and catering it was 81,721 (26,459 in accommodation services and 55,262 in food and beverage services), in travel agencies and tour operators it reached 5,795. Other tourism activities also recorded an increase of 47,320 workers.

In July, the number of salaried employees in the tourism sector, which represents 81.8% of total contributing workers in the sector, increased by 6.2% compared to the same month last year. Self-employment in tourism, which represents 18.2% of the total number of contributing workers, increased by 0.7 %.

Catalonia, the fastest growing

In August 2023, employment in hotels and restaurants and travel agencies/tour operators as a whole increased in all regions.

In relative terms, the year-on-year increases in the Canary Islands (6.2%) and Balearic Islands (6.1%) stand out.

In absolute figures, the largest increases were in Andalusia (16,318 more affiliates), Catalonia (12,848), the Community of Madrid (10,022), the Balearic Islands (9,188) and the Canary Islands (9,439).

Non official translation