The Canary Islands was the second region in Spain with the greatest increase in turnover and employment in the services sector throughout 2022, with an increase of 32.4% in sales and 5.9% in employment on average throughout the year, according to data published on Tuesday by the National Statistics Institute (INE).
In the month of December alone, turnover in services in the Canary Islands increased by 16.5%, and closed the year with a year-on-year increase in employment of 3.7%.
In Spain as a whole, the services sector recorded an average increase in turnover of 19.9% in 2022, its highest annual increase since 2001, when the series began, according to data released on Tuesday by the National Statistics Institute (INE).
With the rise in 2022, sales of services chain two consecutive years of increases, after increasing by 15.8% in 2021. In 2020, the year in which the pandemic began, they plummeted by 15.6% due to the almost total shutdown of the sector, especially the hotel and catering sector, between March and June.
Trade increased its sales by 19.7% last year, while other services invoiced 20.5% more than in 2021. Within commerce, wholesale trade increased its turnover the most in 2022, with an average annual increase of 24.7%, followed by retail trade (+12.4%) and the sale and repair of vehicles and motorbikes (+8.1%).
As for other services, the biggest annual increases in turnover were in hotels and restaurants (+44.4%) and administrative and support services (+30.7%), followed by transport and storage (+22.1%); professional, scientific and technical activities (+10.7%) and information and communications (+8.7%).
Within hotels and restaurants, accommodation services increased their turnover by 78% in 2022, while food and beverage services increased by 31.8%.
Outside the hotel and catering sector, sales of travel agencies (+145.7%), air transport (+106%) and taxi transport (+54.3%) rose sharply, following the gradual return to normality after the pandemic restrictions.
Only two activities sold less in 2022 than in 2021: radio and television programming and broadcasting (-0.6%) and postal and courier activities (-0.3%).
Adjusted for seasonal and calendar effects, turnover in services rose by 20.3% in 2022 as a whole, while the seasonally adjusted year-on-year rate stood at 14.4% in December last year, extending November’s rise by 1.4 points.
In December 2022, the turnover of services (not adjusted for seasonal and calendar effects) increased by 11.1% compared with the same month in 2021, a rate 2.8 points lower than in November. With this rise, the sector has accumulated 22 consecutive months of year-on-year increases, although December was the least pronounced of all of them.
In the monthly rate (December 2022 over November of the same year), turnover in services, excluding the seasonal and calendar effect, fell by 0.7%, its biggest drop since last July, when it fell by 1.7%.
EMPLOYMENT IN SERVICES SETS RECORD GROWTH IN 2022
Employment created by the services sector recorded an average increase of 3.9% last year, its highest rise since the beginning of the series, which also marks two years of upturns after the collapse suffered in 2020 due to the irruption of Covid (-4.3%).
All sectors increased their workforce in 2022. The biggest rebound was in hotels and catering, the only activity where employment grew at a double-digit rate (+10.3%), followed by information and communications (+5.5%), administrative activities (+3.6%) and professional activities (+3.1%).
For their part, the most moderate annual rises in employment were recorded in the sale and repair of vehicles (+1.2%) and in wholesale trade (+1.6%).
THE BALEARIC AND CANARY ISLANDS LEAD THE WAY IN SALES AND EMPLOYMENT GROWTH IN SERVICES
In 2022 as a whole, all the Spain’s regions increased their turnover in the services sector, with the upturns recorded by the Balearic Islands (+42.5%); the Canary Islands (+32.4%); Galicia (+26%); Madrid (+23.1%), and Navarre (+20.8%) standing out. The least pronounced increases were in Murcia (+10%) and Castilla-La Mancha (+12.3%).
In terms of employment, the number of employed personnel also increased in 2022 in all regions. The largest increases in employment in the services sector were recorded in the Balearic Islands and the Canary Islands, with increases of 12.9% and 5.9%, respectively, in average terms.
The most moderate increases in employment were recorded in Aragon (+0.4%), Castile and Leon (+1.3%), La Rioja (+1.6%) and the Basque Country (+1.7%).
