Tourism employment in the first quarter of 2024 has reached 2.75 million, which represents an increase of 7.7% compared to the same period in 2023, according to data published by Turespaña.

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The number of workers employed in the tourism sector is up 7.7%

Between January and March 2024, tourism-related activities registered 197,630 more employees than in the same quarter of the previous year, which represents one out of every four jobs created during this period in the Spanish economy as a whole (797,000). In other words, 24.8% of the new jobs came from tourism-related activities. For their part, the number of workers active in tourism in the first quarter of the year exceeded three million (3,171,827), 6.6% more than in the same period of the previous year.

In addition, the percentage of unemployed overactive workers in tourism activities was 13.2%, a lower figure than in the same quarter of the previous year and which represents three consecutive quarters of year-on-year decreases.

“Tourism employment has been undergoing a paradigm shift for months, in line with the rest of the tourism sector: more employees, more salaried workers, more permanent contracts and more full days: in short, more and better jobs to care for and reinforce the social sustainability of tourism, one of our fundamental objectives for the present and the future”, said the Minister of Industry and Tourism, Jordi Hereu.

Temporary employment rate falls
In this first quarter, the main tourism activities have experienced growth. Hotels and restaurants increased by 10%, due to the positive evolution of both food and beverage services (12.1%) and accommodation services (2.9%). In passenger transport, the year-on-year change was 14.6%, and only travel agencies are negative (-12.7%).

The main growth in this first quarter has been among wage earners (7.8%) rising to 2,264,942. These wage earners also showed increases in passenger transport (14.4%) and in hotels and restaurants (11.3%). Likewise, the number of employees in the tourism sector with permanent contracts (85.3%), one of the variables marking the improvement in the quality of employment in the sector, increased by 10.7%, which is the eleventh consecutive increase. On the other hand, the number of employees with temporary contracts fell by 6.4%.

The temporary employment rate in the tourism sector was 14.7%, a lower figure than in the same period of the previous year, which was 16.9%. Thus, the temporary employment rate in the tourism sector is one percentage point below the temporary employment rate for the Spanish economy, which stood at 15.7% for this quarter.

With regard to the type of working day, full-time employees accounted for 73.8% of the total number of employees and increased by 6.7%. Self-employed workers increased by 7.5% compared to the same period in 2023, reaching 487,743 workers in this type of employment.

Extremadura and Catalonia, the fastest-growing regions
The Autonomous Communities that have registered the highest number of employed persons from January to March are Catalonia (537,952 employed persons and year-on-year growth of 25.6%), Madrid (444,533 and an increase of 3.9%), Andalusia (409,233 and a growth of 2.3%) and C. Valenciana (276,817 and an increase of 11.2% compared to the same period in 2023).

In this period, the number of employed persons grew in all the Autonomous Communities, except in the Canary Islands, Castile and Leon, Cantabria, Navarre and La Rioja. On the other hand, the Autonomous Communities where the number of employed persons grew the most were Extremadura, with a year-on-year growth of 32.4%, Catalonia, with 25.6%, and Aragon, with 21.8%.