The number of workers in tourism activities affiliated to Social Security reached 2.31 million last February, according to data provided by Turespaña. This is 5.7% less than in February 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic started, when the sector employed 2.45 million people. The pandemic has subtracted exactly 140,419 jobs from tourism.
The sector as a whole employed exactly 2,309,687 people in February, representing 11.7% of the total number of workers of the Spanish economy, which has more than 19.66 million people contributing Social Security taxes. In February 2020, tourism employed 12.7% of all affiliated workers, which was then 19.28 million, 2% less than at present.
In terms of the type of activity, accommodation services closed last February with 256,782 workers contributing to Social Security, 8.7% less than two years ago, when 281,255 workers were employed in that sector.
As for the number of workers affiliated with travel agencies, in February they fell to 54,955, 14.5% less than two years ago, when they employed 64,256 workers.
Of these almost 55,000 workers, 37,971 are employees and 16,984 are self-employed. Two years ago, there were almost 10,000 more employees (47,097) and a similar number of the self-employed (17,159).
Almost 28% of travel agency workers were affected by an ERTE in February, 10,536 to be precise, according to the latest data published by the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration.
As for the hospitality industry, it employed 1.22 million workers in February, almost 64,000 workers less than in February 2020, when 1.3 million were employed in the sector.
