Madrid/Palma.The economic sector representing the engine for the Spanish and Balearic economies, tourism, has apparently lost its throttle.
Records for the last five years suggest the situation is desperate.
Up to 600'000 jobs have been wiped out from the industry since the recession and the credit crunch struck, according to data gathered by the Active Population Survey and distributed by Institute for Tourism Studies.
In the first quarter of 2008, when the Spanish economy was still growing and the unemployment rate in the country was steady at around the 10 percent mark, the tourist industry employed 2'533'080 people in Spain, 611'441 more workers than those listed from January to April this year, when employment figures in the tourist industry reached 1'921'639.
Jorge Carrillo, CC.OO General Workers' Commission representative for the aviation industry and tourism , claims that a fourth of all employees across the country's tourist industry have been wiped out. That is horrific. The Balearics, however, has managed to buck the national trend over the last six months with unemployment falling consecutively.
And now, with the tourist season upon us, plenty of seasonal jobs have been created but, come the winter, many of those will end and scores will jobless again.
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