Tourism Secretary Ana Mendes Godinho made these revelations during a visit to central Portugal this week where she told reporters that close to an average of almost 5,000 new jobs have been created every month since the beginning of the year.
“This year, tourism is breaking records in terms of wealth creation, the number of tourists and is also setting new records for job creation”, said Ana Mendes Godinho, adding: “For the first time in six years, the tourism industry is creating jobs and not losing them. Between January and September, 40,000 new jobs were created.”
The State Secretary further explained that new jobs were also being created outside of the traditional summer months, and that Portugal is starting to diversify and transform the industry.
Ana Mendes Godinho had recently forecast that the biggest challenge for the coming decade would be “to have tourists visiting the whole year round, and not just during peak season”, adding that the government was actively seeking ways to attract more people to different regions, “namely inland areas.”
The State Secretary added that by ensuring tourism develops into a year-round activity, the number of workers being laid off during the winter months would be reduced. She said this would also allow for more specialised professionals to operate in the industry.
Last year, tourism was responsible for 15.3 percent of the country’s exports, generating 11.4 billion euros in wealth while employing 8.2 percent of the active population.
Ana Mendes Godinho also praised the work done in the past decade by both the state and private entities and said the “country’s tourism map has changed considerably over the past decade and is no longer concentrated in three regions.”
She predicted that the industry would continue to generate employment opportunities, as “12 percent of the tourism workforce disappeared in the past five years and there is currently a huge shortage of qualified professionals.”
The State Secretary’s comments came shortly after the release of promising job figures.
According to statistics out this week, the number of unemployed registered in job centres in Portugal fell 8.8 percent in September compared with the same month in 2015, to 491,107 people, and dropped 1.5 percent compared with the previous month.
The numbers from the Institute of Employment and Vocational Training (IEFP) showed that the 1.5 percent drop in unemployment in September was the biggest in that month of the year since the records began in 1989.
In terms of age groups, youths (under 25) and adults saw a year-on-year drop of 11.8 percent and 8.4 percent, respectively.
Across the country, compared with September 2015, unemployment fell in all regions, with the biggest improvement being registered in the Algarve (-18.4 percent).