Spain’s tourist towns may not get their September break, with over 3 million people still working in tourism. Credit: Alex Segre / Shutterstock
Residents of Spain’s holiday towns have long expected things to go quiet the moment August ends. However, the number of people working in tourism barely changed between August and September this year, when it fell by around 60,000 over the same stretch last year.
Hospitality workers are seeing two sides to the same story, though, with some industries peaking in the final summer month, while others see a dramatic drop in clientele.
Tourism jobs held firm after August
Many residents of Spain’s tourist towns expect September to bring the same thing every year: emptier beaches, quieter streets and seasonal staff heading home. The latest Turespaña report (from Spain’s tourism agency) suggests that picture is changing, at least when it comes to jobs.
At the end of September, 3,056,939 people were registered with the Spanish national insurance system in tourism-linked jobs, 4.7 per cent more than a year earlier. That’s actually higher than August’s 3,051,657 total, whereas last year the move from August into September cut the total by roughly 60,000, going the opposite way.
It also means the sector has now stayed above three million for five months in a row, from May to September. Last September it slipped back under the mark.
The pace has quickened too. Tourism jobs were up 2.3 per cent year on year in August, so September’s 4.7 per cent roughly doubles the growth rate in a single month.
Bars, restaurants and hotels did most of the hiring
Hospitality had 88,413 more people registered than in September 2025, which accounts for nearly two thirds of the whole annual rise of 136,415. Bars and restaurants added 64,491 of those, with hotels and other places to stay adding 23,922.
However, these figures count people on the payroll, not how many businesses are actually staying open for longer, or whether their opening and closing dates have changed.
A golf worker says September is now high season
Javi, 26, works at a golf course in Sotogrande, in San Roque (Cádiz province), where he says September and October, and even the start of November if the weather behaves, count as high season. “Summer too, but we’ve had more work in September,” he said.
He puts it down to more people living in the area all year round. “Here, July and August used to be full and then September arrived and it emptied. Not any more,” he said. In his view, British, German and Finnish buyers can now afford a second home and end up living in it, and he points to golf club membership as the proof: “If you’re a member of a golf club, it’s not to just play golf for a month and a half or two months a year.”
He also said a Saturday in mid-November at Plaza Blanca in Sotogrande can now draw about as many people as a Friday in mid-July, before the August crowds arrive. However, he stressed that August is another matter: “There’s simply no room.” The quietest months, he said, will always be January, February and March.
A restaurant worker saw the streets empty
Andrés, 28, who works in a restaurant in Sotogrande, described a very different September. The first week still felt like August, with tourists staying on, “but for the next one it was as if everyone disappeared at once. The streets emptied and businesses lost a lot of customers.”
He said September is also when local residents come back, because many of them leave in July and August, finding the number of tourists “a bit overwhelming”.
Neither account contradicts the national figures, which count people on the payroll rather than customers through the door, and could mean that businesses are holding on to seasonal workers a bit longer with the expectation of tourists also staying longer. Both workers are also speaking from their own corner of of the industry, so their experience may not match the rest of Spain.
Not every region follows the same pattern
The Comunitat Valenciana had the biggest percentage rise in tourism jobs, at 6 per cent for hospitality and travel agencies combined, ahead of Castilla-La Mancha and Cataluña. Cataluña added the most people in raw numbers, with 16,475 more, and Andalucía came second on that measure. The report doesn’t split the Valencia figure by province, though, so it can’t show how much came from the Costa Blanca, for example.
Not everywhere is holding on to its summer workers though. The Balearic Islands lost 13,439 tourism jobs between August and September, a 7 per cent drop to 178,930, even though that’s still 4 per cent up on a year ago.
The October figures, due next month, will show whether Spain’s autumn slowdown has just been pushed back by a few weeks.