Labour market data for February, provided by the Employment and Training Corporation (ETC), indicate that the figure of the labour supply remained unchanged over the same month in the preceding year, the National Statistics Office reported yesterday.

This was the result of an increase of 424 persons in the gainfully occupied population and a decrease of 425 persons on the unemployment register.

In this way, the labour supply stood at 145,631 in February 2006 as compared to 145,632 in February 2005. This was distributed as follows: the gainfully occupied population amounted to 137,962, whereas the registered unemployed amounted to 7,669.

Full-time self-employment

In February, people in full-time self-empoyment amounted to 16,270. This denotes a net increase of 125 people in full-time self-employment over the comparable month in the preceding year. A closer look at the data on hand indicate that the number of full-time self-employed persons engaged business activities increased by 71 or 8.8 per cent, while those self-employed persons operating in retail trade had gone down by 129 or 4.2 per cent.

This reduction in the number of self-employed people operating in retail trade was complemented by an increase of 50 or 4.8 per cent self-employed centered on wholesale trade. Within the construction sector, the number of self-employed people increased by 65 or 2.7 per cent over the 12 months to February.

Regional distribution of full-time employment

Regional data for February 2006 indicates that the gainfully occupied population amounted to 129,629 and 8,333 in Malta and Gozo respectively.