During the second quarter of this year, Portugal’s accommodation, catering, and related activities sectors saw a significant increase in employment, marking a total number of 332,400 workers.
Data provided by TravelBI have revealed that this figure shows an increase of 28.8 per cent.
According to these data, between April and June 2023, the workforce engaged in the accommodation, restoration, and similar sectors accounted for 6.7 per cent of the overall economy, marking an increase of 0.4 percentage points compared to the previous year’s second quarter.
During the second quarter of 2023, 54 per cent of the workforce in the accommodation, hospitality, and related sectors had a secondary education or higher qualifications. As a result, this figure marked a significant increase of five percentage points compared to the same period in 2022.
The same authority said that this data set affirms the continuous trend of a progressive increase in the qualifications of employees within the sector. This trend has been observed in recent years. TravelBI also added that this is highlighted by the fact that the percentage of workers with higher qualifications in these sectors was only 40 per cent in 2017.
Moreover, data from Statista revealed that in 2021, the Portuguese tourism sector experienced a decrease in its workforce, with about 332,400 employees recorded due to the pandemic. This represented a decline of 1.9 per cent when compared to the previous year’s figures. The country was home to around 74,000 active tourism companies during the same period.
In March of this year, the Ministry of the Interior in Portugal also launched a new initiative, including a comprehensive package of 20 different measures. Among these measures, a key component includes a strategic plan to strengthen the tourism sector workforce by 20 per cent.
In this regard, the Ministry of the Economy and Maritime Affairs emphasised that the primary objective of this agenda is to elevate the count of qualified tourism professionals with secondary and higher education by ten per cent.
At the same time, it also stated that it aims to augment the enrollment of students in tourism-related programs at all educational levels by 15 per cent. Furthermore, the Ministry added that a pivotal goal of the initiative is to enhance the workforce within the sector by 20 per cent.
