9% of jobs in Mexico are in the tourism sector

Mexico’s tourism sector has seen impressive job growth since the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted the global tourism industry in 2020, according to the latest employment statistics.

The Ministry of Tourism (Sectur) announced this week that in the first quarter of 2024, 4,831,000 people worked in the tourism sector, an increase of 7.7% compared to the then-record number of people employed in tourism in the first quarter of 2020. This number represents 9% of total employment in Mexico in for the first three months of the year, noted Tourism Minister Miguel Torruco Marqués.

In real numbers, 344,009 more people were employed in the tourism sector in the first three months of this year than in January-March 2020.

The growth in tourism jobs comes amid a steady post-pandemic increase in international travel to Mexico. More than 42 million international tourists visited Mexico in 2023, an increase of 10% compared to the number of international travelers who arrived in the country in 2022.

National Statistics Agency (INEGI) reported earlier this month that 4.1 million foreign tourists visited the country in March, an increase of 10.6% compared to the same month last year.

Sectur also reported that in the fourth quarter of 2023, the Mexican tourism sector saw job growth of 0.6% quarter-over-quarter.

On an annual basis, the number of jobs in the tourism sector in the first quarter of 2024 increased by 3.3%, or 153,333 additional jobs, compared to the first quarter of 2023.

With reports from Forbes