As tourism continues to recover, labour supply and skills are not keeping pace with demand. In many countries, seasonality, informality, and gender inequalities limit job stability and career progression while wages lag behind economy-wide averages. Youth, women, and migrants remain overrepresented in lower-skilled and lower-paid positions, while overall educational attainment in the sector is low. Using ILO harmonised microdata and Cedefop’s online job-advertisement evidence, this analysis shows where tourism jobs matter most, who holds them, and which skills employers value most. The strongest demand is for transversal skills such as communication, teamwork and self-management, alongside management capabilities, digital competencies, and green skills related to sustainability and resource efficiency. Improving job quality, advancing formalization, and investing in training systems that strengthen transversal, digital, managerial and green skills are critical steps to transform the sector’s fragile recovery into resilient and inclusive growth.
Who works in tourism?
Tourism is one of the most labour-intensive industries globally, generating diverse job opportunities while fostering social inclusion and economic growth. Its linkages with other sectors create strong multiplier effects. The industry provides jobs for both highly skilled professionals and individuals facing employment barriers—such as youth, migrants, women, and those with limited formal education. The share of women and youth employed in the sector often exceeds their share in the overall workforce. For youth in particular, the sector offers flexible job opportunities that can be combined with education or training, while building essential skills like communication, teamwork, and problem-solving.
In many countries, migrants—defined as either non-citizens or foreign-born persons–represent a significantly higher share of employment in tourism than in other industries. This is driven by the sector’s seasonal nature, the demand for a mobile workforce, and relatively low entry barriers. Migrants often fill positions that are difficult to staff locally, supporting business continuity during peak seasons and in remote or high-demand locations.
Where tourism matters most
The tourism sector is a major driver of economic growth, enterprise development and job creation, particularly for women, youth, migrant workers and local communities. Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) represent the majority share of the industry and its workers. Yet, these MSMEs often lack the resources to invest in training, thereby limiting workers’ opportunities for skill development and career progression.
Tourism’s contribution to employment varies significantly across regions, with small island economies -especially reliant on the sector. In these destinations, where economic diversification is limited, tourism is often the main source of income and jobs. For example, tourism makes up around one-fifth of employment in the Bahamas and Cook Islands. It also accounts for 12-16 per cent of jobs in Palau, Seychelles, Barbados, and Niue, and nearly 9 per cent in Mauritius.
Employment patterns vary widely by subsector and country. In most countries (47 out of 57 with available data), food and beverage serving activities constituted the dominant subsector, representing over 90 percent of tourism jobs in Indonesia, Bolivia and El Salvador. In the remaining 10 countries, accommodation was the leading subsector, accounting for as much as two-thirds of employment in the Seychelles. Travel and tourism services was still an important subsector, accounting for over 40 per cent in Colombia, Bangladesh and Panama.
While some regions see renewed activity post COVID-19, others face a slower recovery, partly due to workforce shortages and skills mismatches. The pandemic exposed structural and decent work issues, prompting many workers to leave the industry. Today, gaps and shortages in essential roles, from restaurant managers and fast-food workers to seasonal staff, are slowing recovery, affecting service quality and undermining the sector’s resilience.
The working conditions behind the shortages
Labour and skills shortages in tourism stem from structural issues including informality, low wages, seasonality and long working hours, inadequate infrastructure and limited training systems. These factors have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and geopolitical instability which disrupted travel flows and investor confidence. At the same time, climate change, technology, demographic shifts, and evolving consumer preferences are reshaping the industry’s skills needs and increasing the need for a more skilled and adaptable workforce.
In line with economy-wide trends, informal employment remains prevalent in tourism, especially among own-account workers in low-income countries. This widespread informality contributes to skills shortages and mismatches, and limits access to social protection, finance, and training opportunities. The ILO Recommendation on the Transition from the Informal to the Formal Economy Recommendation (No.204) provides a framework to support the formalization of workers and economic units; promote sustainable enterprises and decent jobs in the formal economy; and prevent the informalization of formal economy jobs. Formalization can help address labour and skills shortages by reducing mismatches and making tourism jobs more attractive, secure, and resilient.
In most countries, hourly wages in tourism fall well below national averages. Wage growth in the sector continues to be constrained by a persistent gender pay gap largely driven by occupational segregation, part-time employment, and reduced working hours for women due to caregiving responsibilities. Additionally, the large proportion of migrant workers further contributes to wage disparities.
The high prevalence of seasonal and temporary jobs in the tourism sector significantly limits career development and access to training programmes, contributing to skills and labour shortages, particularly in destinations that rely heavily on seasonal tourism. The ILO Working Conditions (Hotels and Restaurants) Convention, 1991 (No. 172) along with Recommendation (No.179) offer guidance to improve job quality and can help address shortages in accommodation and food services.
Evolving skills needs
Despite significant variation across countries and subsectors, the tourism sector is characterized by generally low levels of educational attainment. In many East and West African and South Asian countries, over 70 per cent of tourism workers have basic education or less. Similarly, in Central America, Southeast Asia and the Arab States, over 50 per cent of the workforce has low educational attainment. In contrast, regions such as North America, Europe, Central and Western Asia, and the Pacific Islands show higher educational levels, with over 20 per cent of workers holding advanced degrees.
The educational attainment of the tourism workforce also differs across subsectors. Low levels of education are particularly prevalent in food and beverage serving activities, while accommodation, recreation and entertainment also employ substantial shares of workers with only basic education or less. In contrast, travel services tend to have the most educated workforce in many countries. These patterns point to a greater need for foundational and work-based learning pathways, particularly in subsectors with lower initial education levels.
Rapid technological change, evolving consumer demands, and the growing emphasis on green and sustainable tourism have exacerbated skills mismatches and gaps, with low levels of educational attainment further compounding these challenges and challenging the sector’s resilience. Addressing these gaps in line with the ILO’s Quality Apprenticeships Recommendation (No. 208) and Skills and Lifelong Learning Strategy 2030, requires identifying the occupations most vulnerable to shortages and aligning training systems accordingly.
Tourism relies on a wide array of occupations and skill sets. At the 1-digit level of the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO), service and sales workers represent the largest share of the tourism workforce, at about 51 per cent of total tourism employment, followed by elementary occupations (around 17 per cent). These figures underscore the sector’s strong reliance on frontline roles requiring interpersonal, customer service and adaptability skills. At the same time, managers account for approximately 8 per cent of tourism employment, underscoring the importance of management skills including planning, communication and problem-solving skills.
Occupation-skill matrices (ISCO-ESCO) help identify the types of ESCO skills commonly associated with ISCO groups. Within the service and sales workers unit group, top-ranked skills include ‘assisting and caring skills’, which consist of skills focused on assistance, supervision, and support for individuals in need of care. These encompass skills such as ‘preparing and serving food’ for occupations such as chefs, cooks, waiters, bartenders or street food salespersons; ‘providing information and support to the public and clients’ for occupations including hotel managers and receptionists; and ‘protecting and enforcing’ skills for protective services workers which help maintain safety, compliance, and service quality across the sector.
Despite their strong participation in the tourism sector, women continue to face gender-based occupational segregation and remain underrepresented in higher-skilled and leadership roles. This limits the available talent pool and exacerbates staff and skills shortages. Women are disproportionally concentrated in lower-skilled positions such as clerical support, service and sales, and elementary occupations, which are characterized by assisting and caregiving skills. While these frontline roles are essential to operational efficiency, they are typically associated with lower pay and limited opportunities for career advancement.
Online Job Advertisement (OJA) data offers valuable insights reflecting market demand for specific skills and competencies. For instance, in the accommodation and food services sector, transversal skills, such as ‘self-management skills and competences’ appear in approximately 75 per cent of OJAs, and ‘social and communication skills and competences’ appear in approximately 61 per cent, underscoring their critical role across the sector. The three most important skills clusters are ‘communication, collaboration and creativity’; ‘assisting and caring’; and ‘management skills’.
Within technical knowledge skills, digital skills are increasingly in demand, reflecting the sector’s growing reliance on technology for operations and customer engagement. Most mentioned digital skills in the sector’s OJAs in 2024 included ‘computer literacy’, ‘office software’, and ‘microsoft office’. While green skills are currently less prominent, they are expected to grow, especially in ecotourism and in destinations vulnerable to climate change, thus demanding competencies in sustainability, environmental stewardship, and resource efficiency.
The emphasis on transversal skills over specialized knowledge is a defining feature of many jobs in tourism. These portable transversal skills, such as communication and teamwork, enable workers to transition to other sectors offering better conditions and career prospects, contributing to high turnover and labour shortages in the sector.
Conclusion
These findings show that tourism drives job creation across skill levels and offers youth, women, and migrants pathways to gain valuable work experience and develop technical and soft skills. Labour and skills shortages in the tourism sector are highly context-dependent, varying significantly across countries and subsectors. In addition to retention challenges, the sector faces difficulties in sourcing the right skills and in fully utilizing existing talent due to mismatches between job requirements and available skills, seasonal employment patterns, persistent gender inequalities and pay gaps, and limited access to training and career pathways. Addressing these shortages and promoting decent work are essential to unlocking tourism’s potential as a driver of inclusive growth and sustainable development.
As called for in the Conclusions of the Technical meeting on COVID-19 and sustainable recovery in the tourism sector, inclusive employment policies based on social dialogue are essential to support targeted skills development. This includes improving training systems and recognizing prior learning to enhance productivity, facilitate job creation and retention, drive innovation and entrepreneurship, attract workers, foster inclusion and career development. These measures are key to meeting the labour market needs of the tourism sector while addressing skills gaps and gender-based occupational segregation.
The ILO guidelines on decent work and socially responsible tourism, the Conclusions of the Technical meeting on COVID-19 and sustainable recovery in the tourism sector, the ILO strategy on skills and lifelong learning 2030, and the Quality Apprenticeships Recommendation, 2023 (No. 208) provide guidance to promote decent work opportunities for all in the tourism sector and better respond to the changing requirements. They emphasize the need for inclusive skills development, certification, and lifelong learning, supported by social dialogue and partnerships and offer frameworks to build a more resilient and inclusive tourism workforce.
Cedefop is the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training. It supports the development of European vocational education and training policies and contributes to their implementation. The agency is helping the European Commission, EU Member States and the social partners to develop the right European VET policies.
Concepts and definitions
In this blog, we follow the ILO sectoral notion of Hotels, Catering and Tourism (HCT), and proxy it using the following 2-digit divisions of the International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities (ISIC) rev. 4:
- 55: Accommodation
- 56: Food and beverage service activities
- 77: Rental and leasing activities
- 79: Travel agency, tour operator, reservation service and related activities
Where data are available for earlier ISIC revisions, closest-equivalent dhttps://ilostat.ilo.org/topics/ilo-sectors/ivisions are mapped to these groups. Additional data on HCT and other sectors based on the ILO’s Sectoral Policies Department operational framework can be found on the sectoral employment statistics page.
Users should note this proxy differs from the tourism definition used in the Worker and Sector Profiles database, which follows the international definition used by UN Tourism and includes additional subsectors such as those related to passenger transportation.
Unless otherwise noted, statistics are based on the ILO Harmonized Microdata Collection using the latest available year per country, generally 2012–2023. For distributions, data may not sum up to 100 per cent due to rounding. Global and regional figures are simple unweighted averages of countries with available data.
The wage ratio is defined as the average hourly wages in tourism divided by the economy-wide average. Earnings refer to those of employees only (i.e. excludes the self-employed).
Migrants are defined as non-citizens or foreign-born persons depending on data availability.
Data by education are based on the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED-11), and data by occupation are based on the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO-08). Broad skill levels follow ISCO-08, with “low” referring to skill level 1, “medium” to skill level 2, and “high” to levels 3-4. The ISCO-ESCO Skill-Occupation Matrix Tables, which are tools developed by the European Commission, link ISCO-08 occupation groups to European Skills, Competences, Qualifications and Occupations (ESCO) skill groups, providing a common bridge between occupations and skill requirements.
As for skills requirements, evidence is drawn from the Cedefop’s Skills-OVATE online job-advertisement (OJA) data for European countries. These aggregate web-posted vacancies, remove duplicates, and classify them by ESCO. OJAs serve as a proxy for labour demand (what employers ask for), not employment. Results may over-represent larger, formal employers and under-capture informal or small-firm hiring. For further details, see https://www.cedefop.europa.eu/en/projects/skills-online-job-advertisements.
