Hotel and catering employment grows by 4.5% this September and is holding up well

Last September, the Social Security registered an average of 20.72 million affiliates. This represents an increase of 18,295 contributors with respect to August. Of this total, 1.87 million are employed in the hotel and catering sector. This reflects an increase in employment of 4.5%, which translates as 81,389 more workers than in September 2022.

Despite this upward change, the data is not positive when compared to the figures for hospitality sector employees in August of the same year. In the monthly rate, employment fell by 1.8%, with nearly 35,000 fewer workers.

This month-on-month fall is similar to that which took place in the same month in 2022. Although it is milder than that which occurred during the years prior to the pandemic, which was more than 42,000 workers.

Specifically, there were 1,870,811 workers, which is 81,389 more than in the same month of the previous year.

According to data from the Ministry of Labour, there are wide variations in employment in the hotel and catering sector depending on the autonomous community. With respect to the Community of Madrid, this year there has been a growth of 7.7% from August to September. On the other hand, if we talk about hotel and catering employment in Catalonia, there has been a decrease of 3.1%.

Another of the axes to be assessed in order to compare the variations in the figures is the branch of activity. In the case of accommodation, the number of employees fell by 5.4%, with around 25,000 fewer workers, in line with previous years.

The reason for this difference in evolution compared to the pre-pandemic years is due to catering. This represents a decrease of 0.7%, with about 10,000 fewer workers than in August. This is a significant departure from the falls of more than 20,000 in the pre-crisis years.