The services sector increased its turnover by 7.7% last February compared to the same month in 2022, moderating the rise registered the previous month by 5.4 points, as reported on Wednesday by the National Institute of Statistics (INE). With the advance in February, the services chain two consecutive years of year-on-year increases after a year of falls as a result of the pandemic.
Commerce billed 6.4% more last February than in the same month of 2022, thanks, above all, to the sale and repair of vehicles and motorcycles, which billed 18.4% more year-on-year.
For their part, other services increased their sales by 10.6% year-on-year in February, driven especially by the hospitality industry (+16.9%); administrative activities (+13.8%) and professional, scientific and technical activities, which increased their turnover by 13.6% compared to February 2022.
Within the hotel industry, accommodation services increased their sales by 32.3%, while food and beverage services billed 11.6% more than in February 2022.
By activity, the greatest increases in sales were recorded by travel agencies and tour operators (+71.9%) and air transport, which increased by 57.5%.
In monthly terms (February over January) and in seasonally and calendar-adjusted data, the services sector recorded a monthly rise in its sales of 0.9% in the second month of the year, thus ending two consecutive months of setbacks .
For the twenty-third consecutive month, employment in the services sector grew last February, and it did so at an interannual rate of 1.9%, a rate one tenth higher than that of January. The Balearic Islands was the community that increased creation the most of employment in the services sector last February, with an interannual increase of 5.7%, and also the one that increased sales the most, 20.4% in the interannual rate.
Industry
For its part, industry turnover rose 8.8% last February compared to the same month in 2022, mainly due to the boost in sales of capital goods, which shot up 24.7 %. Although, as in services, the advance for February is lower than that for January (3.7 points less), the industry billing also adds up to 24 consecutive months of rises.
In monthly terms (February over January) and in seasonally and calendar adjusted data, the industry increased its sales by 0.9%, in contrast to the monthly drop of 1% experienced in January.
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