The economy of Tenerife maintained in the first quarter of the year a high dynamism despite being a period in which seasonality, after the Christmas campaigncauses every year quarterly declines in some indicators of activity and employment that, in no case, have meant a setback in annual terms. This is the balance that is extracted from the latest Economic Bulletin of the island of Tenerife prepared by the Official Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Services and Navigation of Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
The beginning of the year 2023 has been marked by a favorable evolution of affiliation to Social Security and an improvement in the business confidence indicator, highlighting the economic strength of the Island at the present time. Specifically, affiliates grew at a quarterly rate of 0.3%, which means 1,226 more employed than in December 2022, and 4.8% in the last year, until the total number of affiliations on the island stands at 381,031 affiliations. , 17,294 more than those existing in March 2022.
In both periods the behavior is better than the regional average, where the variations were 0.2% in the quarter and 4.7% in the last year. In this way, Tenerife registered the highest number of affiliations of all the islands of the Archipelago up to March, representing 43% of the total number of affiliates in the Canary Islands.
Improvement in employment that businessmen on the island also revealed, when in the latest business confidence survey 13.2% stated that their hiring had increased in comparison with the last quarter of 2022, 76.6% that had kept them stable, and only 10.2% revealed setbacks in their workforces during the first three months of the year.
Some good data that allowed us to maintain significant levels of consumption, despite the fact that inflation did not stop putting pressure on the pockets of the people of Tenerife. One of the indicators that shows this strength is the sale of passenger cars, which, far from falling, grew significantly. In the first three months of the year, 6,199 passenger cars were registered in Tenerife, 677 more than in the last quarter of 2022 and 1,901 more than those registered in the first quarter of 2022.
But it was not only local demand that continued to stimulate activity in sectors such as the commercial or hospitality sectors. The good records of tourist activity continued to contribute significantly to the growth of the economy as a whole. Thus, the total number of foreign and national tourists entering Tenerife during the months of January to March 2023 amounted to 1,719,545, a record for the island.