Spanish tourism has reached historic figures this summer, and the rise in the sector has also been reflected in employment data. The Spanish Tourism Institute (Turespaña) has revealed in a report prepared on Social Security affiliation in this sector that tourism employment grew by 5.1% compared to the previous year in the month of August, in addition to surpassing the same rate as the data from August 2019, the last year before the effect of the pandemic.
In total, 2,759,166 Spaniards held jobs linked to tourism activities in the month of August, 134,836 more than the same month of the previous year. With this last data, 13.5% of the affiliates of the national economy now correspond to the tourism sector. 81.8% of all tourism workers are salaried and members of this type have grown by 6.2% compared to the previous year. Self-employed workers, who make up 18.2% of total affiliates, have also increased, although at a more moderate rate of 0.7%.
Thus, tourism employment breaks the record set in 2019, the best year for the sector in Spain to date, in a season in which the engine of the national economy has reached maximum levels in both the number of visitors and total spending. Beyond the unprecedented summer months on record, both hotel and travel reservations are continuing to rise in the month of September, and some agencies expect this trend to continue well into October.
Travelers who wait until the end of the high season to go on vacation, in order to avoid overcrowding or extreme temperatures, or even find deals for lower prices, can help extend historic tourism results. If this continues in the coming years, the seasonality of the sector could be reduced, which would make the boosts to employment in the summer months more prolonged rather than punctual.
Hospitality drives the sector
Among the different types of activities within the tourism sector, the branch that accumulates the most members, the hospitality industry, has also been the one that has registered the highest number of new registrations, with 81,721 new workers. Specifically, the number of employees in activities related to food and beverage service has increased by 55,262, while the increase in members in accommodation services was 26,459. Travel agencies and tour operators, for their part, have registered an increase of 5,795 members, and the remaining 47,320 registrations correspond to the rest of the activities.
Although tourism employment has grown in all the autonomous communities, the Canary Islands and Madrid have stood out for the interannual increase rates recorded, of 6.2% and 6.1%, respectively. Regarding the total number of new affiliates, Andalusia (16,318) and Catalonia (12,848) have been the territories where the absolute data have been highest.
