The service sector increased its turnover 18.2% in March compared to the same month of 2021, moderating the rise registered the previous month (+23.5%) by more than five points, as reported this Friday by the National Institute of Statistics (INE).
With the advance of March, the services chain 13 consecutive months of year-on-year increases after a year of falls as a result of the pandemic.
Within the services the hospitality (accommodation services and food and beverage services) was the sector that increased its sales the most in March, 85.4% in relation to the same month of 2021.
Specifically, accommodation services multiplied their sales in March by more than four in the interannual rate (+326.8%), while food and beverage services invoiced 50.9% more. These rates have moderated with respect to those registered in previous months.
Along with these activities, but already outside the hotel industry, also stand out the increase in sales of travel agencies and tour operatorswhich multiplied by more than five (+422.4%), and air transport, which multiplied by more than two (+161.4%).
For its part, commerce increased its annual turnover by 16.2%, while other services, which includes hospitality along with other subsectors, registered a 22.5% rise in sales compared to March 2021.
Within commerce, the greatest year-on-year increase in sales was experienced by wholesale trade (+23%), followed by retail trade (+8.8%). By contrast, the sale and repair of vehicles cut its turnover by 6.4% year-on-year in March.
In the case of other services, the highest annual increase in sales was recorded by the hotel industry (+85.4%), followed by administrative activities and auxiliary services (+36.4%); transportation and storage (+18.7%); professional, scientific and technical activities (+10.7%), and information and communications (+10%).
By autonomous communities, all of them increased their turnover in the interannual rate last March. The greatest advances in sales in the services sector occurred in the Canary Islands (+49.7%), the Balearic Islands (+39.6%), Madrid (+21.6%) and Catalonia (+19.8%), while the minors were registered in Castilla y León (+6.1 %) and Cantabria (+8%).
Adjusted for the calendar effect and seasonality, the turnover of the services sector increased by 17.5% in March compared to the same month of 2021, a rate 6.1 points lower than that of February.
In the first three months of the year, sales in the services sector grew by an average of 21.7% (+21.1% in the seasonally adjusted series), highlighting the upturns in travel agencies (+382.1%), accommodation services (+332.5%) and air transport (+146.8%).
Monthly drop in sales of 3.3%
In monthly terms and in data adjusted for seasonality and calendar, the services sector recorded a monthly decline in sales of 3.3% in March, in contrast to the 5.9% increase experienced in February.
Within other services, which increased their sales by 0.6% in the month, it only lowered the billing in transport and storage (-2.3%) and increases were registered in the rest, especially in administrative activities (+3.1%) and information and communications (+1.4%), followed by hospitality and professional activities, both with increases of 0.7%.
Commerce, for its part, cut its sales by 3.9% in March in relation to the previous month, with decreases of 2.5% in retail trade, 12.7% in the sale and repair of vehicles and 4 .5% in wholesale trade.
By subsectors, the largest monthly rises in sales occurred in accommodation services (+17.6%), other professional activities (+13.4%) and air transport (+10.8%). Among the decreases, the sale and repair of vehicles and motorcycles (-12.7%), food and beverage services (-5.4%) and storage and activities related to transport stood out, also with a fall of 5.4% .
Employment records its biggest rise in 20 years
For the twelfth consecutive month and after more than a year of falls, employment in the service sector grew in Marchand did so at an interannual rate of 4.8%, four tenths more than in February and its highest rate since the beginning of the series, in January 2002.
In March, occupancy in other services rose by 6.7% year-on-year and by 1.9% in commerce. Within the other services, the hotel industry was the one that increased employment the most, 14.8% compared to a year earlier, its highest increase in 20 years.
In March, all the communities presented interannual increases in employment in the services sector. The Balearic Islands came out on top as the number of employed persons in the sector soared by 16.3% year-on-year, being the only region with a two-digit increase in employment.
Behind it, the year-on-year increases in employment stand out in the Canary Islands (+7.1%), Catalonia (+6.1%) and Cantabria (+5.1%), while the most moderate increases were recorded in the Basque Country and Aragón (+2% in both cases), Castilla y León (+2.5%) and Asturias (+2.6%).