According to the data corresponding to the Active Population Survey (EPA) released today by Turespaña, under the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism, in the first quarter of the year the figure of 2,488,488 employed persons linked to tourism activities was reached, with a year-on-year increase of 2.8%, which means 67,808 more employees than in the same period of the previous year. Those employed in the tourism sector represent 12.8% of total employment in the Spanish economy.
The percentage of unemployed in tourism activities stood at 14.2%, the lowest figure for a first quarter since 2009 and five tenths less than the national average.
The Secretary of State for Tourism, Isabel Oliver, considers “very positive these data, which reflect, once again, the leadership of the Spanish tourism sector in terms of job creation.” Oliver has highlighted the good results obtained with the Master Plan for Decent Employment launched in August 2018, as it allows progress in obtaining quality employment in tourism activities that already has 67.8% of employees with contracts indefinite and that in the first quarter of 2019 have increased 2.8% year-on-year.
The employed grew in all branches of activity. The data stand out in passenger transport services (+ 13.6%), in hotels (+ 1.4%) and in other tourist activities (+ 1.5%).
In the first quarter of 2019 both wage earners and the self-employed in the tourism sector increased. The number of employees grew by 3.4% year-on-year, to 2,005,030 employed. Self-employed workers in tourism amounted to 482,475, 0.7% more than the previous year.
As for the Autonomous Communities, this first quarter Ceuta and Melilla (+ 26.4%), Extremadura (+ 25.1%) and Cantabria (+ 20.6%) stand out for the growth in the number of employed in tourism, while Asturias, Murcia, the Community of Madrid, the Balearic Islands and Castilla y León were the communities where the number of employed persons decreased the most with respect to the same quarter of the previous year.
The Autonomous Communities with the greatest number of tourist flows (Catalonia, Andalusia, the Community of Madrid, the Canary Islands and the Valencian Community) are, in turn, the ones that generate the most occupied in the sector, bringing together in the first quarter of the year the 69 , 2% of the total employed.
