Employment, education and training for an adaptable workforce

The Lisbon Strategy clearly places job creation and economic growth in all its Member States as the keystone of its objectives. The emphasis on employment within Malta’s NRP is evidenced by the fact that employment was selected as one of the five main pillars on which Malta’s NRP is hinged. Labour market performance is seen as being critical to the island. As at June 2007 the number of registered unemployed stood at 6,332, a decrease in the overall number of unemployed persons of 748 when compared to June 2006.

A key challenge for Malta is to increase the overall female participation rate in employment. Though it is acknowledged that reaching the target of 40 per cent by 2010 is demanding, the government is nonetheless committed to register improvements in this regard. In this respect, a number of initiatives have been introduced, namely tax credits to women returnees, family friendly measures to encourage more working mothers, and a promotion of the use of child care centres.

Furthermore, the government has announced a tax rebate for all families using the facilities of private kindergartens.

The government’s vision for Malta is one which ensures continuous investment in human capital and education. Malta’s NRP subscribes to this vision and includes several education and training thrusts aimed in the long term at further shaping a highly-skilled workforce through lifelong education for all. This goal is seen as the driving force and critical solution to improve the country’s long-term competitive edge by meeting the nation’s competence needs in adapting to the opportunities and threats of globalisation. The main highlights within this pillar include:

Although employment rates for Malta are lower than for the EU-25, it is to be noted that improvements are being registered with an increase of 0.9 percentage points between 2005 and 2006. These figures result from Malta’s weaker performance in the employment rate of females as in the case of males, the overall employment rate is actually better than the EU-25.

Malta has registered an improvement in its employment growth to the tune of 2.7 per cent between 2005 and 2006 compared to the EU-25 rate of 2.4 per cent .

In particular, one notes the significantly higher rate of growth applicable to females which outshines the EU-25 performance by 4.1 percentage points for the same period. This is not applicable in the case of males as the total percentage of males in employment is 2.5 percentage points higher than in the EU-25 as at 2006 and has been consistently above the EU-25 level for the period 2004-2006.

Unemployment rates in Malta are not only declining over the period 2005-2006 in Malta but are also lower than the EU-25.

Malta’s long term unemployment rate in total (2.9 per cent in 2006) and across gender (2.5 per cent for females and 3.1 per cent for males in 2006 is constantly decreasing.

Malta has also registered an improvement in the gap that existed in terms of the average exist age from the labour force by narrowing this gap to 2.1 years in 2005 when compared to the EU-25.

The gender pay gap in Malta stands at a very low level (four per cent) when compared to the EU-25 average (15%).

Implicit tax rate on labour is lower in Malta (22.1 in 2005) than the EU-25 (36.6 in 2005) contributing to a lower tax burden and hence increased spending power.

The government is also addressing upper secondary education. During this year the government has announced an investment of Lm50 million spread over a number of years with a view towards promoting upper secondary education and ensuring that the vision of a Centre of Excellence in the Mediterranean region will be fully realised. The percentage of people who have completed at least upper secondary education has increased by almost three percentage points when compared to 2004.

The participation rate of adults aged 25-64 in education and training is 5.5 per cent although it is still under the EU-25 average, Malta scores better than seven of the new acceding countries. The participation in education and/or training activities for persons aged over 15 years during the last few years Malta has seen a small increase of approximately two percentage points in the number of females participating within education and/or training.

During the past three years, the gap between male and female participation within education and/or training has been decreasing. In fact the gap between males and females during 2004 amounted to 1.1 percentage points whereas in 2006 this gap stood at 0.12 percentage points.

During 2008, the University of Malta and the Malta College for Art, Science and Technology will together benefit from Lm10.521 million in capital investment which will be utilised to pursue new projects such as the setting up of the Faculty for Information and Communication Technology, establishing laboratories within the fields of engineering, chemistry and biology.

Consultation

The Maltese Government is firmly committed towards stakeholder involvement in its decision making process; in fact the Maltese NRP is a result of an extensive public consultation exercise with the five strategic themes being chosen after intensive interaction between the public service and sector, social partners, civil society and Parliament. The same principles of continuous consultation have been maintained throughout the implementation phase.

The Malta Council for Economic and Social Development has already been consulted on the progress attained and on communicating Lisbon – although further consultations are envisaged. Furthermore during the Commission visits, the Council always has the opportunity to meet the Commission delegation and raise its concerns.

Overall Government is satisfied with the results obtained in the first year. The NRP represents an important yardstick by which Government’s performance and the Maltese citizens’ quality of life can be measured.

The fact that over the last three years the majority of the measures in our NRP have been incorporated in Malta’s budget programme is further evidence that Malta is addressing the Lisbon targets with vision and determination.

The all-round sound performance of our economy is indeed the result of our improved competition.

Censu Galea is Competitiveness and Communications Minister

The first part of this article was carried yesterday.