Greece’s Tourism Sector Among Top Employers in 2014-2023

Waiter on Santorini.

Greece’s tourism industry is among the country’s leading employers, with the hospitality and F&B sectors marking a 28.8 percent increase in employment in the 2014-2023 period, found a study released this week by INSETE, the Greek Tourism Confederation’s (SETE).

At the same time however, according to the Panhellenic Federation of Catering and Tourist Industry Employees (POEET), the tourism season is about to begin with businesses reporting some 80,000 unfilled jobs: of which 53,000 in hospitality and 30,000 in F&B.

More specifically, employment at hotels, bars and restaurants increased by 28.8 percent in 2023 to 382.6 thousand up from 297.1 thousand in 2014.

In 2023, both sectors accounted for the largest share of employees marking a 0.2 percent rise over 2019 to 382.6 thousand.

According to INSETE data, uninsured jobs in the 2018-2023 increased in hospitality by 153.3 percent to 4.2 thousand in 2023 up from 1.7 thousand in 2018 and in the F&B sector, grew by 54.6 percent to 15.9 thousand up from 1.7 thousand in 2018.

In efforts to help tourism enterprises fill vacant positions in view of the upcoming tourism season the government launched the “JOBmatch” app on May 13. If the first two weeks, 1,568 businesses and 8,485 users 46 percent of whom were unemployed, registered. So far 8,500 matches have been achieved and 2,952 interviews.