The tourism sector starts the year with 2.7 million employees, 1.2% more than in the first quarter of 2024

Tourism employment has started the year building on the positive trend it experienced throughout 2024. In the first quarter of 2025, the sector recorded 2,787,704 employed workers, an increase of 1.2% compared to the same period in 2024, despite the fact that this year Easter fell outside the period analysed.

Between January and March 2025, according to data published today by Turespaña, tourism-related activities recorded 34,347 more employees than in the same quarter of the previous year. During this quarter, employees in the tourism sector accounted for 12.8% of total employment in the Spanish economy.

In addition, the unemployment rate in the tourism sector stood at 12.1%, 1.1 percentage points lower than in the same quarter of the previous year.

The number of employees continues to grow

In this first quarter of the year, all the main tourist activities experienced growth, except for hospitality, where the impact of Easter falling later was more noticeable. Thus, the number of people employed in hospitality fell by 1%, due to the negative evolution in food and beverage services (-2.8%) and the increase in accommodation services (5.7%). In travel agencies the variation was positive, at 21.9%, while in passenger transport it was also positive, at 3.4%.

The number of employees in the tourism sector during this period amounted to 2,327,588, which is a year-on-year increase of 2.8%. This continues the year-on-year increases of the previous fifteen quarters. Increases in the number of employees were seen in passenger transport (5.2%) and in hospitality (1.2%), as well as in other tourism activities (5.4%). In the case of hospitality, both accommodation and food and beverage services increased. Within other tourism activities, travel agencies experienced an increase of 23.4%. The employment rate (salaried/employed) was 83.5%, 1.2 percentage points higher than in the first quarter of the previous year.

Full-time employees on the rise

Employees in the tourism sector on permanent contracts (85.3%) have increased by 2.7% year-on-year, representing the 15th consecutive increase. Furthermore, the number of employees with temporary contracts was up by 2.9%.

In this regard, the temporary employment rate (employees with temporary contracts/total employees) in the tourism sector was 14.7%, the same figure as in the same period of the previous year, but lower than the temporary employment rate for the economy as a whole, which was 15.1%. In terms of working hours, full-time employees accounted for 75.4% of all employees, a 5% increase. The number of part-time employees grew by 3.5% and accounted for 24.6% of the total.

The number of self-employed workers in the tourism sector stood at 459,625, down 5.9% compared to the same period of the previous year, with decreases in hospitality (-10.5%) and passenger transport (-3%) and an increase in other tourism activities (7.2%).

Madrid and Andalusia, the fastest-growing regions

In terms of territorial distribution, the number of employees increased in nine autonomous communities. Among the main regions, the number of employees in Madrid was up by 10.3%, and in Andalusia, by 9.5%, while the employment rate fell in Catalonia (by 5.8%) and Valencia (by 2.7%) and remained practically flat in the Balearic and Canary Islands.

Non official translation