The Canary Islands rank fifth in terms of the importance of hospitality in the labor market. The community has a total of 191,346 jobs in this activity, giving it a weight of 10.3% in this sector in the Spanish labor market, according to INE data compiled by the temporary employment company Randstad.
By subgroups, food and beverage services have 85,578 employees and a weight of 6.2% in the Spanish market, while accommodation services have 105,768 employees, representing 22.7% of the national market. In this sense, it ranks as the community with the highest occupation in hospitality in accommodation services, concentrating 22.7% of the national market.
The Canary Islands (10.3%) rank behind Catalonia (18.3%), Andalusia (17.4%), Madrid (12.8%) and the Valencian Community (11.1%) in terms of employment weight; followed by the Balearic Islands (6.4%) and Galicia (4.1%). If we focus exclusively on accommodation services, the Canary Islands lead in employment, with 22.7% of the total, followed by Catalonia (17%), Andalusia (16.9%), the Balearic Islands (14.2%), the Valencian Community (6.9%) and Madrid (6.4%).
In the Spanish market as a whole, the pull of activity translates into an average of 1.84 million employees in the labor market in 2024, 5.4% more than in the last year and the highest figure in the last five years, according to INE data. The activity was one of the hardest hit by the Covid-19 crisis, but it has not only recovered but has exceeded the level of employment it had before the pandemic.
The hospitality sector is composed of two subsectors: accommodation services, with 25.1% of the total employees, and food and beverage services (restaurants and bars), which account for the remaining 74.9% of employees.
A predominantly female activity
Hospitality is an activity where female employment is in the majority. At the end of 2024, female employees totaled just over one million, 54.3% of the total, with a very similar proportion between accommodation services and food and beverage services.
Like other sectors of the Spanish economy, hospitality faces a generational replacement challenge. In the case of accommodation services, at the end of 2024, 49% of employees were 45 years of age or older, a very similar percentage (45%) to that of food and beverage services.
And all this despite the significant increase in employment by foreigners or people with dual nationality, who have gone from 497,000 employed in the first quarter of 2019 to 772,000 at the end of 2024, that is, 55% more in the last five years. On the contrary, Spanish employees have remained at 1.07 million. With these data, 58.1% of employees are of Spanish nationality, 30.6% are foreign and the remaining 11.3% have dual nationality (Spanish and another).
Another key aspect is that it is an activity with low-skilled employees, since only 35% of the employed have completed professional or university studies. In the case of accommodation services, employees with professional or university education rises to 41%, while in food and beverage services it decreases to 33%. In the case of accommodation services, 31% of employment is considered elementary occupation, a percentage that decreases to 12% in the case of food and beverage services.
