Tourism employment remains strong at the start of 2026, driven by growth in permanent contracts and a reduction in temporary employment. In the first quarter of this year, the sector registered 2,934,334 employed workers, representing a 5.3% increase compared to the same period in 2025.

Between January and March 2026, according to data published today by Turespaña, tourism-related activities recorded 146,631 more employees than in the same quarter of the previous year. During this quarter, employees in the tourism sector accounted for 13.2% of total employment in the Spanish economy.

In addition, the unemployment rate in the tourism sector stood at 11.3%, 0.8 percentage points lower than in the same quarter of the previous year.

The number of employees continues to grow

In this first quarter of the year, the main tourism activities have experienced growth, except for travel agencies, where the decrease was 15.4%. The increase in the hospitality sector was 4.2%, due to positive growth in both accommodation services (7.9%) and food and beverage services (3.1%).

The number of employees in the tourism sector during this period amounted to 2,487,670, which is a year-on-year increase of 6.9%. This continues the year-on-year increases of the previous nineteen quarters. These employees showed increases in passenger transport (7.1%), hospitality (5.3%), and other tourism-related activities (12.5%). Within the hospitality sector, both accommodation and food and beverage services saw increases. Within other tourism activities, travel agencies experienced a decrease of 14%. The rate of salaried employment (salaried/employed) was 84.8%, 1.3 percentage points higher than in the first quarter of the previous year.

Increase in permanent contracts

The number of employees in the tourism sector with permanent contracts (86.3%) increased by 8.2% year-on-year, marking the nineteenth consecutive increase. Meanwhile, the number of employees with temporary contracts decreased by 0.8%.

In this regard, the temporary employment rate (employees with temporary contracts/total employees) in the tourism sector was 13.7%, 1.1 percentage points lower than in the same period of the previous year. The total temporary employment rate in the Spanish economy stood at 14.8%. In terms of working hours, full-time employees accounted for 74.5% of all employees, a 5.7% increase. The number of part-time employees grew by 10.5% and accounted for 25.5%.

The number of self-employed workers in tourism was 446,390, a decrease of 2.9% compared to the same period of the previous year, with declines in hospitality (-1.5%), passenger transport (-8.8%), and other tourism activities (-2.3%).

The Basque Country and the Valencian Community saw the strongest growth.

In terms of territorial distribution, the number of employed people increased in fourteen of the Autonomous Communities, including Andalusia, the Community of Madrid, the Valencian Community, the Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands, and fell in the rest, including Catalonia.

The Basque Country recorded the highest growth, with 15.8%, followed by the Valencian Community (14.5%) and Andalusia (13.9%). On the other hand, Catalonia recorded a 7.1% decrease in the number of people employed in the tourism sector.

Non official translation