Employees in the accommodation and food service sector received higher wages as the economy bounced back from the Covid-19 pandemic, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported.

In the 2021 Annual Survey of Philippine Business and Industry (ASPBI), data showed that an average annual compensation of P180,250 was paid to each employee engaged in accommodation and food services in 2021.

This was higher by 2.1 percent than the average annual compensation of P172,192 per paid employee in 2020.

Overall, the employers in the section pulled out a total of P66.2 billion of their pockets to pay their employees in 2021.

The accommodation and food section, however, employed fewer workers in the same year, with only 372,623 workers, down 2.9 percent from the 383,782 workers in 2020.  

Of the total employment in 2021, 98.6 percent or 367,246 workers were paid employees, while the rest were working owners and unpaid workers.

The PSA also reported there were more establishments engaged in accommodation and food service in 2021, which had 33,215 establishments compared to the 28,838 establishments in 2020.

Among the industry groups, restaurants and mobile food service activities had the most establishments with 25,642 or 77.2 percent. 

It was followed by beverage-serving activities with 3,790 establishments (11.4 percent) and short-term accommodation activities with 3,122 establishments (9.4 percent).

On the other hand, other accommodations recorded the lowest number of 317 establishments or 1.0 percent of the total establishments.

Meanwhile, over P556.62 billion in revenues were generated by the accommodation and food service section in 2021, up by 4.1 percent from the P534.53 billion total revenue in 2020.

The section's expenses also slightly swelled by 0.9 percent at P499.85 billion from P495.26 billion recorded a year earlier.

In this section, restaurants and mobile food service activities generated the most revenue of P438.43 billion and a total expense of P391.48 billion;  followed by short-term accommodation activities with P66.12 billion total revenue and P69.18 billion total expense; and beverage serving activities with P47 billion total revenue and P34.75 billion total expense.  

Annual surveys such as the ASPBI are conducted a year after the reference year, the PSA noted. Likewise, this survey was conducted in 2022 as its reference year was 2022.

The ASPBI is designed to collect and generate information on the levels, structure, performance, and trends of economic activities of the formal sector of the country’s economy.

For the 2021 edition, the ASPBI covered establishments in 18 sections, one of which is the accommodation and food service activities.