Malaga's Job Sector Is Booming! These Are The Industries To Look Out For

It’s official: the job sector in Malaga is booming. This is great news for the local economy, the national economy and, of course, for the people living in Malaga too!

And it’s not just the traditional sectors of tourism and hospitality that are experiencing a job boom in the city. According to the latest release from the Spanish Labour Force Survey (EPA) an additional 50,000 people are employed in Malaga. This is a record breaking figure.

You might be forgiven for thinking that all of these jobs will be in typical summer seasonal roles such as bars, restaurants, and hotels. But actually there are other sectors of the economy that are being boosted in Malaga in 2024.

Here’s a complete breakdown of Malaga’s booming job market:

New Jobs Generated In Malaga Q2 2024

The EPA divide jobs in four categories for the purpose of their research. Those categories are services, industry, construction and agriculture. So if we look specifically at these categories then of the 50,000 jobs created 31,000 were in the services sector and 17,000 in construction, while the other two sectors remained almost the same.

Looking at these figures alone then, we would say that service roles (which are often seasonal) dominated the job market in Malaga for Q2. But these figures don’t show the whole picture.

If instead of simply looking at Q2 we look at Q1 and Q2 figures then we will eliminate the seasonal impact and see what the sector really looks like overall. In this case we will see that it is the construction industry that has added the most jobs: 24,000 of the 47,000 generated. Then the service sector, then industry.

This is a significant finding in a marketplace which is traditionally dominated by seasonal service sector work. There are more people employed in the construction industry in Malaga (an additional 80,000 employees) now, and this is the highest employment figure in the sector since 2008.

It’s also important to note that the term services sector doesn’t always apply to the hospitality industry, although this is our first instinct when we think of the term. The sevice sector is a large catch all category in Spain and also covers roles that are administrative, legal and professional services to new technologies, health and education.

What Do Employers In Malaga To Look Like?

To find out more about the companies that are employing local people in Malaga right now the statistics on Social Security enrolments are the most useful source. This is data gathered by the government that outlines who has signed on as being employed, and who has signed up with additional employees. These figures confirm the EPA data about the huge increase in employment in Malaga this year. They also show the top sectors that are adding to their employment numbers.

The top 3 industries in Malaga are shown to be hospitality, commerce, plus admin and auxiliary services. 27,000 new contributors came from this sector, and it won’t come as any surprise that the biggest contributor here was the hospitality sector. An additional 5,550 people have been employed in hospitality taking the total number of people employed in the sector from 102,838 to some 108,390.

2,700 people (making 124,000) now work in commerce in the city and in third place you’ll find  administrative and auxiliary services, a section that encompasses "rental activities, employment-related activities, travel agencies and tour operators, security and enquiry activities, building services and gardening activities, office administrative activities and other business support activities." This has created 2,654 new jobs in the last year (it now has more than 62,000 employed).

The Tech Sector In Malaga

Although it failed to break the top 5 list, it would be impossible to talk about employment in Malaga without mentioning the roaring success of the city’s tech sector. More than 900 new jobs have been added to this industry in the past year. Given the small size of this sector this is a significant increase, and shows the success of what has been dubbed Malaga’s “tech revolution.”

Two other sectors also deserve an honourable mention for growing by more than 1,000 people in the past 12 months.  Transport and logistics and public administration (without including teachers or doctors, but including other staff in the justice system, the tax authorities, the security forces and other civil servants). Finally real estate activities which have also grown: no doubt directly related to the growth of the construction industry and new properties.

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