The Canary Islands starts the year as the autonomous community where retail sales grew the most, 13.3% in January of this year compared to the same month of 2021, while employment registered an increase of 3.2%, according to a report from the National Institute of Statistics (INE).
It should be noted that December 2021 did not bring good figures in terms of retail sales in the islands, since there was an interannual increase of only 0.2%, 13 points less than in January 2022. These numbers were marked by the omicron coronavirus variant, which hit the country during the last month of the year in the middle of the Christmas shopping season. However, sales returned to positive rates in January as a result of the decrease in cases, and driven by the traditional sales campaign.
National evolution
In Spain as a whole, there has also been a growth in retail sales, with an interannual increase of 3.8% in the first month of the year.
Sales in the Balearic archipelago have been the second most favorable in the country, with an increase of 8.3% in January 2022 compared to 2021. Meanwhile, the Basque Country and Navarra were the only two communities where sales decreased, with negative rates of 3.4% and 0.5%, respectively.
For its part, employment in retail trade increased by 3.2% year-on-year in January, being the largest increase since 2004 after nine months on the rise.
