10% of Iceland’s workforce employed in tourism
Tourism to Iceland has skyrocketed during the last years, and is now a major source of employment in the country.
About 22,000 people work in Iceland’s tourism industry, which is 10% of all working Icelanders, Grapevine reports citing Kjarninn.
Of all tourism industry workers in Iceland, about 6,000 are foreigners. Due to the limited size of Iceland’s population (app 332,500) and the rapid expansion of the tourism industry, new positions to a high degree will have to be filled by foreign workers, and it is predicted that as much as 40% of Iceland’s tourism industry workers will come from abroad, both this year and the next.
For the last twelve months, from May 2015 to April 2016, overnight stays in hotels were 3,095,600, which is an increase of around 27% compared with the previous year. Foreign tourists account for more than 83% of the stays, Statistics Iceland reports.
Iceland‘s GDP is expected to grow by 4.3% in 2016 due to strong private consumption and investment, according to Statistics Iceland.
