On an annual basis, there was an increase of 198 persons on the unemployment register. Those persons registering under Part 1 of the unemployment register amounted to 7,382, whereas those registering under Part 2 amounted to 758 as at the end of September 2004. In the month under review, there were 2,394 persons under 25 years of age registering for work. These were distributed as follows: 2,004 under Part 1 and 390 under Part 2. On the other hand, there were 2,245 persons over 45 years of age registering for work. These are divided into 2,143 that were registering under Part 1 and 102 registering under Part 2.

When it comes to the duration of unemployment, there were 3,436 persons who were registering for work for under 20 weeks as at the end of September 2004.

Taking into account both those registering for work under Part 1 and Part 2, there were 607 registered unemployed in Gozo and 7,533 registered unemployed in Malta. With specific reference to Gozo, there were 425 men and 182 women registering for work. On the other hand, there were 6,080 men and 1,453 women registering for work in Malta.

Unemployment rates

for May 2004

The latest unemployment rate, for May 2004, stood at 5.6 per cent of the labour supply. This figure translates into 6.3 per cent for men and 3.7 per cent for women. In May 2004, the long-term unemployment rate stood at 2.0 per cent, whereas the unemployment rate for persons who were 45 years and over stood at 4.4 per cent during the same month.

The unemployment rate among young people stood at 8.1 per cent. The rate of unemployment among males who were less than 25 years was 9.9 per cent, while that of females was 5.9 per cent.