In the third quarter of this year the number of tourism workers has fallen in the Balearic Islands, but has grown in Spain. The archipelago has had a decrease of 9.9% year-on-year in workers in the sector. At the same time, at national level the figure has grown by 2.3% compared to the same period in 2023. This has allowed that, for the first time in history, the total number of tourism workers exceeded 3 million. In the Balearic Islands just over 201,000 tourism workers have been counted, according to Turespaña’s latest Labour Force Survey (EPA). This includes the employees of the sector, which are about 183,000 (90.9% of the total) and the self-employed, just over 18,000 (the remaining 9.1%). While employees were 10.5% less than a year ago, the self-employed fell by 3.2%. In August, data from the Ministry of Industry and Tourism showed a growth in the number of tourism workers on the islands, although less than the increase at national level.
More than three million in Spain
Meanwhile, data from Turespaña show that the number of active workers in tourism in the third quarter of the year exceeded three million (3,285,271), 2.3% more than in the equivalent period of 2023. In this third quarter, the number of employees in the tourism sector with permanent contracts increased by 4.3%, this being the thirteenth consecutive increase, and the temporary employment rate in the sector stood at 19.4%, lower than that of the third quarter of 2023, which was 20.9%. Cantabria and Castilla y León are the communities where tourism employment is growing the most, which confirms, according to the Ministry of Industry and Tourism, “that the trend towards deconcentration is also improving job opportunities in northern and inland regions of the country”. Employees in the tourism sector in this quarter constituted 13.8% of total employment in the Spanish economy.
