Covid-19 impact on salaries of the tourism activity in 2020 in Destination Barcelona

The Barcelona Tourism Observatory: city and region has presented the Job Market and Salaries of the Tourist Activity in Destination Barcelona 2020, a report that has highlighted the effects of Covid-19 on the labour market of the tourist activity in Destination Barcelona.

The results of this report show that tourism activity was one of the activities that received a greatest impact in 2020, despite the extraordinary measures taken by the governments to avoid the destruction of the productive fabric and jobs: the temporary layoff plans (ERTE) allowed a large number of people to maintain their links with companies while receiving an unemployment allowance. This payment compensated part of the drop in wages caused by this situation.

The report has been compiled with data on salaried workers in Barcelona city, Barcelona region and Destination Barcelona based on data from the Continuous Sample of Working Life and, therefore, it does not include layoff plans payments which were received as compensation for their loss of wages. As a result, this analysis shows a generalized decrease in gross salaries received during 2020 in the tourism activity.

Main results of the report:

• The average salary of tourism activity stood at €16,118, (-23.2% year-on-year), leading to an increase in the wage gap with the rest of the activities, which experienced minor losses.
• The percentage of tourism employees with salaries below €1,000 increased from 49.4% to 66.8%. This proportion remained higher than the rest of the activities (24.5%).
• By type of activity, food and beverage services, which employed half of the workers in tourism, continued to be the activity with the lowest average wage (€9,967), while transport had the highest (€31,521).
• Average salaries in tourism in Barcelona region (€15,638) remained lower than those in Barcelona city (€17,480), where Les Corts residents maintained the top position on the ranking of wages according to district in the city, with the highest average salaries (€22,922) and Ciutat Vella’s the lowest (€10,294).
• Women in tourism (€13,362) continued to receive lower salaries than men (€18,244) and only 65.9% of them worked full time, 12pp lower than men.
• Despite remaining above the rest of the activities, the proportion of foreigners in tourism decreased by 2.9pp year-on-year. Moreover, this group continued to receive lower salaries (€13,042 in Barcelona city) than Spanish workers.
• The proportion of non-indefinite contracts and workers under 30 years old in tourism decreased, due to the fact that during the first year of the pandemic the first affected work places were the temporary ones and/or those with less antiquity.
• Wages in tourism, as in all other activities, continued to have a direct positive relationship with age, education level, professional category or company size.
   

More information: Job Market and Salaries of the Tourist Activity in Destination Barcelona 2020