Employment in the hospitality industry is becoming increasingly internationalized in the Canary Islands, with over 40% of employees in this sector, specifically 40.3%, being of foreign origin or holding dual nationality in the Canary Islands.
More specifically, 31.8% of workers are foreign nationals, and 8.5% hold dual nationality (Spanish and another), according to Randstad Research, the research center of Randstad, the leading talent company in Spain and the world, based on data from the INE.
Only Spanish employees, therefore, represent 59.7%, a figure that places the Canary Islands slightly above the average for autonomous communities. In the Spanish labor market as a whole, 58% of employees are only Spanish.
The communities with a higher proportion of only Spanish employees are Extremadura (82.3%), Asturias (79.9%), and Andalusia (76.2%). The autonomous communities with a higher proportion of employees with dual nationality and foreigners are Madrid (60.5%), La Rioja (51.2%), Catalonia (49.1%), Valencia (47.1%), and the Balearic Islands (46.5%).
In the Spanish labor market as a whole in hospitality, foreigners have increased from representing 26% of the total in 2019 to 30.7% in the last quarter of 2024. Additionally, those with dual nationality (Spanish and another) have increased from 6.9% in 2019 to 11.2% in 2024, according to the report Labor Market in the Hospitality Sector prepared by Randstad Research.
The analysis also reflects the decrease in the number of Spanish workers. Thus, at the end of last year, only Spanish employees totaled 1.07 million, 7% less than in 2019, and with a weight of 58%.
In fact, without the contribution of foreign workers, it would have been impossible to achieve the increase in employment in the activity, since in the last five years (period 2019-2024) employment in the hospitality industry has increased by 7.4%, to a total of 1.84 million people.
Thus, Spanish employees have gone from representing 67% in 2019 to having a weight of 58% in 2024, as mentioned before. These figures also hide an absolute decline, going from 290,537 in 2019 to 277,281 at the end of 2024, that is, 4.5% less. Employees with dual nationality and others have gone from having a weight of 33% in 2019 to 42%, that is, they have gained nine percentage points.
