Analysis of the labour market in the tourism sector in Poland in statistical terms before, during and after the Covid 19 pandemic

The article addresses the issue of changes in the labour market in the tourism services sector in the context of Covid 19 pandemic. It analyses the changes in the labour market in tourism services between 2011-2019, in the year of the announcement of the pandemic -2020 and in the post-pandemic period (in the year 2023), in relation to selected labour market measures in section I of the Polish Classification of Activity (PKD),usingthe statistical data of the Local Data Bank of the Central Statistical Office for individual voivodeships. In order to assess the statistical differences in the basic indicators and measures of the labor market in tourism services, the basic measures of variability of statistical data (mean average, standard deviation and coefficient of variation), Ward's cluster analysis and variability charts were used. The state of the Covid 19 pandemic and related sanitary and epidemiological restrictions in 2020 caused a collapse of the tourism services market in all Polish voivodeships. A greater sensitivity to the effects of the Covid 19 pandemic was noticeable in the mountain voivodeships, traditionally intensively visited by tourists and in the regions with large tourist and sightseeing centres. The coastal voivodeships were positively distinguished by the relatively smaller effects of the increase in the unemployment rate in the tourism services sector and by greater flexibility on the effects of the lockdown during the Covid 19 pandemic. After the pandemic period in the years 2021-2023 there was a systematic increase in the value of tourism traffic indicators and related labour market measures in tourism services in all Polish voivodeships.