The tourist municipality of San Bartolomé de Tirajana is undergoing an unprecedented socioeconomic transformation, leaving behind the specters of the health crisis and the paralysis of the holiday sector. Cross-referencing official data from tax statistics and employment records, the southern municipality is experiencing a structural recovery characterized by an exponential increase in household wealth and a drastic reduction in unemployment. Far from the stagnation of the past decade, the local economy has capitalized on the complete reactivation of the Maspalomas tourism engine, consolidating a growth model that is already reflected both in the average income declared by its residents and in the lowest employment rates in the last fifteen years.
Analysis of average gross income reveals a colossal quantitative leap between the pandemic years and the end of 2023. While in the disastrous year of 2020 gross income plummeted to €21.826 per capita, with a disposable income of €16.392 and a population of 53.066 residents, the subsequent trend shows a meteoric upward curve. In 2021, income climbed to €24.452, continued its upward trend in 2022 to €26.010, and reached its highest point in 2023 with average gross income of €28.305 and a registered population of 54.116. This 29,6% increase in just three years catapulted the municipality in the national wealth ranking to 872nd place and to fourteenth place in the Canary Islands autonomous community, showing that the recovery of the hotel sector brought with it a substantial improvement in wages and business profits in the area.
This surge in the purchasing power of Tirajana residents is directly reflected in the evolution of registered unemployment, which has maintained a continuous downward trend since the absolute collapse caused by the global tourism shutdown in 2020. In that dark year, marked by restrictions on international travel, the municipality suffered a dramatic peak in unemployment, pushing the rate to 26,87%, with a total of 6.955 people registered as unemployed by the Spanish Public Employment Service (SEPE) and a population of 53.397. From 2021 onwards, with the gradual reopening of European source markets, the number of unemployed began to steadily decline, reaching 4.460 and a rate of 17,45%, falling even further in 2022 to 3.779 unemployed and a rate of 14,20% with a population of 54.308.
The positive trend was definitively consolidated between 2023 and the current year of 2026. In 2023, unemployment fell to 3.574 job seekers, representing a rate of 13,29% among 54.668 residents. It decreased further in 2024 to 3.266 unemployed, with a rate of 12,06% and 54.976 inhabitants, and moderated in 2025 to 3.022 unemployed and 11,11%. The official statistical series concludes in June 2026, with the number of registered unemployed at exactly 3.002 people, resulting in an unemployment rate of 11,15% among a population that remains stable at 54.976 residents. This convergence demonstrates that the creation of more than 3.900 net jobs since the worst moments of the pandemic has allowed the absorption not only of the active local population, but also the natural flow of the municipal register.
The intersection of these statistical variables confirms that San Bartolomé de Tirajana has far surpassed the structural imbalances of the recent past. With an average income exceeding €28.300 and unemployment stabilizing slightly above 11%, the economic engine of southern Gran Canaria demonstrates formidable resilience. The combination of a renovated accommodation sector, the injection of funds for tourism modernization, and the high demand for qualified professionals in the service sector has placed the municipality in a scenario of economic prosperity unseen in the last decade, safeguarding the well-being of its households against external macroeconomic uncertainty.
