Lanzarote's labor market has undergone a profound transformation in the last decade, marked by sustained expansion in both the entrepreneurial fabric and salaried employment.
According to Social Security affiliations published by the Canary Islands Institute of Statistics (ISTAC) and provided by the Lanzarote Data Center, the island recorded a total of 12,970 self-employed workers in October 2026, representing an increase of 39.3% compared to the autumn of 2016, when 9,312 self-employed individuals were registered.
In this same ten-year period, salaried employment grew by 42.5%, increasing from 48,776 employees in September 2016 to 69,490 in October 2026. This surge in company hiring accounts for 85% of all net employment created on the island during the decade and has pushed overall employment to its highest level, with 82,460 jobs.
Self-employment versus fluctuations in workforces
Beyond the aggregate figures, historical series reflect a very different structural dynamic between both modalities in the face of crisis situations.
During the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, salaried employment suffered a severe downturn on the island—closely linked to the service and tourism sectors—falling from over 54,000 jobs at the end of 2019 to a low of 46,727 in June 2021.
In contrast, the self-employed collective demonstrated notable resilience: it experienced hardly any fluctuations and remained consistently above the 10,400 affiliate threshold even in the most restrictive months (10,458 in May 2020 compared to 10,712 in December 2019).
Once the health crisis was overcome, from 2022 onwards, the pace of salaried job creation reactivated strongly, surpassing 60,000 employed in the autumn of 2023 and nearing 70,000 in the latest report. For its part, self-employment has maintained a path of constant growth: it surpassed the 11,000 contributor threshold at the beginning of 2022, exceeded 12,000 in early 2025, and is now on the verge of 13,000.
Despite the larger absolute volume of salaried work, the proportion that self-employment represents of the island's total has barely changed in ten years: self-employed individuals constituted 16.03% of Lanzarote's workforce in September 2016 and represent 15.73% in October 2026.
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