In the month of July, at the height of the arrival of visitors to Spain, the tourism sector reached nearly 3.1 million jobs. 110,000 more workers were registered with Social Security, 3.1% more than last year. Employment in this industry continues to grow fueled by the latest records of international tourists, which increased by 5% in the first half of the year, reaching 46.6 million. Even so, unions remind that these figures still hide a high turnover in the workforce and difficulties in attracting and retaining workers, who often end up opting for other jobs with better salaries and greater possibilities for work-life balance.
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“That talk about quality tourism must be for the hotel owners; the chambermaids and dishwashers haven’t noticed it,” says Magnolia Cuevas. She is one of the thousands of women who make up the kellys – those who clean – who more than a decade ago channeled the frustration of hotel room cleaners over their working conditions. She has been in the sector for 17 years and has had moments when she considered changing professions. Instead of leaving, last year she set up a works council. Cuevas denounces that wages remain at the minimum or those set by the collective agreement, a framework that, she assures, hotels do not always respect: “They breach it through outsourcing.”
In 2025, for every 100 Social Security registrations in hospitality, there were 99 employee deregistrations
She has gotten used to returning from her holidays and finding new colleagues on the team, because many leave to take jobs with less physical and psychological strain. “During the pandemic, temporary employment agencies left workers with nothing, so many went to clean schools, hospitals, or offices,” she recalls. The majority profile of the kelly, she adds, has not changed during this time: a migrant woman and, in many cases, single parent.
Between January and June of this year, hospitality – including accommodation activities and food and beverage services – recorded 2.17 million registrations and 1.92 million deregistrations in Social Security. That is, for every 100 registrations, there were almost 89 deregistrations, reflecting the high labor turnover in the sector, although the net balance was positive with 247,125 affiliations. If data for the entire 2025 are taken, the picture is even more striking: for every 100 registrations in hospitality, there were 99.4 deregistrations.
According to the latest available data from the National Statistics Institute (INE), corresponding to 2024, tourism represented 12.6% of Spain’s GDP and 12.3% of total employment. But it is also one of the activities with the lowest wages in the country: hospitality employees earned an average of 17,653 euros, according to the latest annual wage structure survey from the same organization. Additionally, a quarter of workers have part-time jobs. Although labor reform has partially curbed the abuse of temporary contracts, until July 46.8% of new contracts in this industry still had an expiration date. In fact, one in four of these employment relationships lasted less than a week.
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“Precariousness is very prevalent and prevents professionalization of the trade,” says Paco Galván, hospitality secretary of CC.OO. Services. In his opinion, many workers change sectors in search of better work-life balance, tired of night shifts, split shifts, or regularly working weekends and holidays, often without sufficient pay to compensate for these conditions. The head of the hospitality sector at UGT Catalunya, Ester Sanahuja, adds another pressing factor: the housing crisis. “Even though we have achieved wage increases in agreements, it is not enough because housing prices keep rising. There are workers in the sector living in caravans and tents.”
In its latest outlook report, published in July, Exceltur stated that tourism companies have intensified “their effort to improve their image as employers, promoting stable hiring figures.” In their assessment of the situation, sector employers also highlight their concern about absenteeism, which they place at 6.6% of hours worked. According to this survey, this represents a cost of 5.959 billion euros for companies, equivalent to 2.6% of their turnover.
Relations between employers and unions are not currently at a breaking point at the national level – in April they managed to unblock the negotiation of the latest hospitality agreement – but conditions remain one of the main sources of tension in provincial and regional agreements, which set aspects such as wages or working hours.
“I was taking Enantyum every day”
This week the kellys gathered in Sant Jaume square in Barcelona to denounce that the workload overload during the summer has serious repercussions on their health. The spokesperson for Kellys Unión Cataluña, Juani Pérez, criticizes that hotels demand ratios of up to 18 rooms per shift, which often forces them to finish late and skip breaks. “We have normalized the pain. I haven’t worked as a chambermaid for a year and I realized I was taking Enantyum every day,” she explains. The group demands that this profession be included among those eligible for reduced coefficients to access early retirement. Pérez also asks that other illnesses such as knee pain and lower back pain be recognized as occupational to end disputes with mutual insurance companies. Galván, from CC.OO., says they are already negotiating with employers to request these reduced coefficients for the kellys. Despite this, Pérez reproaches a “lukewarm” support from the unions, while agreements still do not include some of their main demands.
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