The Asturian hotel industry breaks its employment record in the face of expectations of a great summer

2023-07-18 04:15:00

The Asturias hotel industry has started the summer campaign with more than 35,000 workers. Never before has this figure been exceeded at the start of the high season, which shows the good expectations that the sector has once the traces of the coronavirus pandemic have been erased and Asturias stands out among the destinations on the rise.

Last week, the national alliance of tourism companies Exceltur highlighted that Asturias and the Balearic Islands were the autonomous communities where the turnover of businesses in the sector increased the most last spring. In the Principality, the rise was 23.5% compared to the same period in 2019, the year before the pandemic. And that same report indicates that facing the current summer season, Asturias and the Balearic Islands will also register the highest sales increases, of 23% in the case of the Principality according to the survey of expected billing levels.

Exceltur links this strong increase in sales to the rise in prices (in the context of high inflation), but also to a “strong” increase in demand. In the case of Asturias, the employers emphasize the increase in foreign tourists (in May their presence increased by 58% compared to the same month of the previous year, according to the National Institute of Statistics) and a strengthening of national tourism “in a context of greater preference for destinations with mild temperatures, with offers of activities in less saturated natural spaces and cultural proposals.”

Otea highlights that the sector has become more professional: there are fewer companies, but stronger ones

Given the good expectations, the hospitality sector has strengthened itself to face this summer and employment levels have reached record numbers. According to Social Security affiliation data at the end of June, in Asturias there were 35,626 workers in the hotel industry, which is 1,035 more than a year ago and 723 more than in the same period of 2019, the year before the coronavirus pandemic. If you dive into the historical series, you will not find a higher figure at the end of a month of June.

Of the 35,626 workers in the hospitality sector in Asturias, a total of 26,761 are salaried and 8,865 are self-employed. Among the former there has been a strong increase in recent years, while among the latter there has been a clear decline. In short: more workers and fewer companies. It is a trend that the Asturias tourism association, Otea, has been observing carefully and has already ruled on.

According to the analysis of the association of tourist companies of Asturias, the hospitality sector was the one that suffered the most harshly from the covid restrictions. Public aid was not enough to protect a sector made up mainly of small companies with very limited economic capacity and this has resulted in closures and, with it, fewer self-employed workers and companies.

However, if it is analyzed in the longer term, Otea points out, it is verified that the number of workers hired in the hospitality industry has been increasing, “which shows that the sector is becoming more professional, that there are fewer companies, but larger and stronger” . From Otea it is highlighted that the tourism and hospitality sector contributes 11% of the regional GDP and that, as a transversal activity, it boosts the activity of other sectors such as commerce, taxis, repairs…

Of the more than 35,000 jobs that the sector has at the start of the summer, more than 16,000 are linked to bars, more than 10,000 to restaurants and food stalls, and more than 5,000 to hotels, tourist accommodation and campsites. In order to cover the jobs of the high season, the employer Otea had warned of the difficulty in finding labor. He even warned that some premises could not open terraces and summer bars due to lack of personnel, a statement that the union organizations did not like. “They can continue with their urban legends, such as the lack of labor, or recognize the reality: 40% of the contracts in the hospitality industry in Asturias are part-time. In fact, we double the national average. The data is stubborn: The problem in the hotel industry is not that there is a lack of manpower, but rather decent conditions to work,” he said. Jose Manuel Zapicogeneral secretary of CC OO of Asturias, in a letter that he sent last Friday to the president of Otea, Jose Luis Alvarez Almeida.