Workers employed in the tourism sector reached 2.86 million in the second quarter of 2023, 6.3 % more than in 2019, and exceeded 3.1 million active workers.

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The Spanish economy is linked to tourism

Tourism employment in the second quarter of 2023 reached 2,864,776 employed, which represents an increase of 5.4 % compared to the same period in 2022 and 6.3 % more than in 2019, according to data published today by Turespaña.

Between April and June 2023, tourism-related activities registered 146,678 more employees than in the same quarter of the previous year, representing one out of every four jobs created during that period in the Spanish economy as a whole (589,000). In other words, 24.9% of the new jobs were the result of tourism-related activities.

The number of workers active in tourism in the second quarter of the year exceeded three million (3,130,026), 6% more than in the same period of the previous year.

About the unemployment rate, it stood in the second quarter at 8.5%, half a point above 2022 due to the increase in active workers, but three points lower than in 2019 (11.1%) and than the national economy, which recorded 11.6%.

“The good data from the Labour Force Survey show that the tourism sector is one of the main economic engines of our country. Spain continues to create jobs linked to tourism activities and does so in an increasingly robust way and always under the motto of quality, stability and excellence,” said the acting Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism, Héctor Gómez.

For his part, Gómez wanted to highlight that “the labour market around tourism has shown a formidable resilience and performance despite the uncertainty generated by inflation and the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. These data show that Spain is not only a power in attracting tourists but also a power when it comes to generating wealth and stability for the citizens who work in this sector”, he added.

Increase in all activities and the number of employees
In this quarter, the main tourism activities have experienced growth. Hotels and restaurants increased by 7.1%, due to the positive evolution of both food and beverage services (7.1%) and accommodation services (7.2%). In travel agencies, the year-on-year change was 0.4 %, while in passenger transport it was 10.8 %.

The main growth in the quarter was among salaried employees (8.1%), with 2,381,684. Salaried employees showed increases in all tourism activities. In passenger transport (17.3 %), in hotels and restaurants (8.7 %) and in “other tourism activities” (3.5 %). Within “other tourism activities”, employees in travel agencies increased by 6.2 %.

Employees in the tourism sector with permanent contracts (80.4%) increased by 18.1% this year, the eighth consecutive increase. On the other hand, the number of employees with temporary contracts fell by 19.9%. In this sense, the temporary employment rate in the tourism sector was 19.6%, seven points lower than in the same period of 2022: 26.4%.

The self-employed decreased by 6 % during the same period in 2022, reaching 482,388. Decreases were recorded in “other tourism activities” (-22 %) and in passenger transport (-8.6 %), while in hotels and restaurants, they increased by half a percentage point (0.5 %).

Occupancy by Autonomous Community
The autonomous communities that have registered the highest number of employed persons from April to June are Catalonia (487,314), Madrid (440,033), Valencia (279,779) and the Canary Islands (271,204).

In this period, the number of employed grew in all the autonomous communities, except in Comunidad Valenciana, Castilla y León, Aragón and Cantabria.

Héctor Gómez emphasizes “that the growth of employment is homogeneous in the communities as a whole, which shows that the Government’s policies, the recovery plans linked to tourism and the constant dialogue with the social agents and the rest of the administrations are bearing fruit: Spain is correcting the historical asymmetries related to tourism employment, which is capable of generating wealth throughout the national territory, which strengthens us as a key economic sector for the performance of the GDP and as a country as a whole”.

The autonomous communities where the number of employed persons grew the most were La Rioja, with a year-on-year growth of 40.1%, Galicia, with 18.3%, and the Balearic Islands, with 18.1%.

The autonomous communities with the greatest number of tourist flows (Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, the Canary Islands, Andalusia, the Community of Valencia and Madrid) together accounted for 74.5% of the total number of people employed in the sector in the second quarter.