The subject of this article is an analysis of current state and employment perspectives in the hotel industry of Croatia and Montenegro. This paper aims to investigate the role of the hotel industry in direct and indirect employment. To correctly assess the importance of the hotel industry in employment, the paper analyses the factors upon which hotel industry employment is dependent and develops an econometric model to estimate the number of hotel industry employees and the capacity of the hotel industry to create the total number of jobs. The starting point of this paper is that it is necessary to maintain high level of employment as well as high level of provided services and management for the realization of tourist advantages possessed by Croatia and Montenegro. The results of research are based on data from secondary sources. Several scientific methods, such as descriptive statistics, the trends method, and correlation and regression analysis, were applied to accomplish the study’s objective. The paper’s main finding points to the future growth of employment in the hotel industries of Croatia and Montenegro and to the ever-greater contribution of the hotel industry to total employment. The hypothesis is confirmed in the paper.