In 2020, roughly 12,600 persons were employed in tourism in Iceland according to statistics on employment in tourism and its share in the Icelandic labour market which Statistics Iceland has released for the first time. This is a decrease by nearly half compared with 2019 which is the lowest recorded employment figure in tourism since 2013. The number of hours decreased by even more, or roughly 51% compared with 2019.
The number of inbound tourists in Iceland decreased by 81% compared with 2019. A decrease directly related to the Covid-19 pandemic which had a significant effect on tourism in Iceland as well as the rest of the world.
The number of persons employed in tourism increased by roughly 109% during the period 2012-2018, or by about 13% per year, on average. Also, during the aforementioned period, the number of inbound tourists increased by roughly 20% per year on average. In 2019, inbound tourists in Iceland decreased by 8% compared with 2018. However, a relatively small change was measured in the number of persons employed in tourism, a decrease by roughly 0.8%, for the same period.
The share of tourism in total employment
In 2020, roughly 5,5% of total working hours are estimated to have been directly related to the production of goods and services for tourism final consumption while tourism direct contribution to GDP is estimated at 3,9%. For comparison, these estimates were, on average, roughly 10.4% for the period 2018-2019.
Statistics on employment in tourism published for the first time
The newly released statistics on employment in tourism contribute to previously published accounts designed to cast light on tourism's role and share in the Icelandic economy. The aim is to estimate labour directly devoted to the service of inbound tourism and domestic tourism in Iceland across all industries.
The statistics include numbers of jobs and employed persons serving tourists directly as well as number of hours worked in tourism. These are preliminary figures and do not include estimates for illegal activities or undeclared or unpaid work. The period covered is 2009-2020.
The statistics are part of the tourism satellite accounts which have been published for Iceland for over a decade. The tourism satellite accounts are used for the measurement of tourism within the national accounting framework and are thus based on international national accounts standards.
Statistics on number of persons, jobs and hours are derived from national accounts’ data sources. The estimation on employment related to tourism is based on the tourism contribution to the value added for all industries. Thus, an assumption is made that for each produced good or service, the labour requirement is the same, independent of the type of consumer for the given good or service.