The Canary Islands has been the second Autonomous Community in which the service sector has fallen the most, registering a decrease in turnover of 34.9% year-on-year in October.
According to reports this Monday from the National Institute of Statistics (INE), so far this year sales in the sector have decreased by 30.1% in the islands.
Meanwhile, in Spain as a whole, the service sector registered a decrease in turnover of 14% in October compared to the same month of 2019, increasing the fall experienced in September (-12.7%) by just over one point.
With the decrease in October, services have chained eight consecutive months of year-on-year declines as a result of the pandemic and its effects on the economy.
The sectors most affected by this crisis continue to be those related to tourism. Thus, the largest year-on-year falls in turnover occur in the activities of travel agencies (-87.3%), accommodation services (-78.5%) and air transport (-69.2%).
In monthly terms and in data corrected for seasonality and calendar, the service sector registered a monthly advance in turnover of 2.9% in October, a rate higher than that of September, when it rose by 1.7%. It is the second consecutive month in which sales in the sector have increased.
This rebound in monthly turnover is due both to the advance in retail sales (+2.5%) and to the increase recorded in other services, which invoiced 3.1% more in October than in September.
Within other services, the hotel and catering industry continues to be the sector that suffers the most from the pandemic: its sales in October plummeted by 8.1% compared to September, thus noticing the effect of the outbreaks that emerged after the summer and the restrictions adopted to stop them.
Despite the effect of temporary employment regulation files (ERTE), employment in the service sector fell in October by 5.2% year-on-year, one tenth more than in September, again highlighting the fall in employment in the hotel and catering industry (-16.9%).
