Tourism employment reached 2.8 million people in the second quarter: "Spain is a powerhouse when it comes to generating wealth"

Tourism employment in the second quarter of 2023 has exceeded 2.86 million employed persons, which represents an increase of 5.4% compared to the same period in 2022 and 6.3% more than in 2019, according to published data. this Wednesday through Turespaña.

Between April and June 2023, tourism-related activities registered 146,678 more employees than in the same quarter of the previous year, which represents one in four jobs created during that period in the Spanish economy as a whole (589,000).. Therefore, 24.9% of new jobs in Spain have been linked to tourism activities.

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

In relation to the unemployment rate, in the second quarter it was 8.5%, half a point above 2022 due to the increase in active workers, but three points less than in 2019 (11.1%) and that the national economy , which registers 11.6%.

The acting Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism, Héctor Gómez, has indicated in a press release that the EPA data show that the tourism sector is “one of the main economic engines of the country” and has highlighted how Spain generates tourism employment each time in a “more robust way”.

Gómez has highlighted that the labor market around tourism has shown “formidable resilience and performance” despite the uncertainty generated by inflation and Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Likewise, he stressed that these data show that Spain “is not only a power to attract tourists, but it is also a power when it comes to generating wealth.”

They increase in all activities

All tourist activities registered growth throughout this quarter. Hospitality 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 interannual variation was 0.4%, while in passenger transport it was 10.8%.

The main growth of the quarter has occurred among wage earners (+8.1%) registering 2,381,684. Wage earners showed increases in all tourism activities. In passenger transport the growth was 17.3%, in hotels 8.7% and in “other tourist activities” 3.5%. Within “other tourist activities”, wage earners in travel agencies experienced a rise of 6.2%.

Wage earners in the tourism sector with a permanent contract (+80.4%) have increased by 18.1% this year, representing the eighth consecutive rise.

For their part, wage-earners with a temporary contract registered a decrease of 19.9%. In this sense, the temporary employment rate in the tourism sector was 19.6%, seven points lower than that of the same period in 2022: 26.4%.

In an interview on RTVE, Gómez has valued the labor reform, which has provided “stability in employment”. “We are dignifying employment in tourism”, he added. Likewise, he pointed out that tourism, given the “magnificent data” that it is contributing, “is pulling a lot from the country's economy.”

The self-employed have decreased by 6% compared to the same period in 2022, reaching 482,388. There have been decreases in “other tourist activities” (-22%) and in passenger transport (-8.6%), while in the hotel industry they have increased by half a percentage point (0.5%).

La Rioja, where it grows the most

The autonomous communities that registered the highest number of employed people from April to June were Catalonia (487,314), Madrid (440,033), the Valencian Community (279,779) and the Canary Islands (271,204).

During this period, the number of employed persons grew in all the autonomous communities, except in the Valencian Community, Castilla y León, Aragón and Cantabria.

The autonomous communities where the number of employed grew the most was 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 highest number of tourist flows (Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, the Canary Islands, Andalusia, the Valencian Community and Madrid) are those that together in the second quarter accounted for 74.5% of the total employed in the sector.