While the government is boasting that the economy has grown by over three per cent in real terms in the third quarter, figures issued by Eurostat on Thursday – but unreported in Malta – say that Malta is the only EU country where the cost of work fell, rather than rose, in the third quarter.

In the rest of the EU, the cost of work increased by 2.6 per cent and by two per cent in the euro area.

In the preceding quarter, the cost of work had risen by 2.8 per cent in the EU-25 and by 2.3 per cent in the euro area.

Further detailed study shows that, in the euro area, the cost of work rose by 2.6 per cent in the industrial sector, 1.4 per cent in the construction sector and by 1.8 per cent in the services sector. The corresponding figures for the EU-25 are: three per cent in industry, 2.7 per cent in construction and 2.5 per cent in services.

While Malta, as said, saw its cost of work fall by 0.2 per cent in the third quarter, Latvia saw an increase of 23.6 per cent, Lithuania 20.09 per cent, Estonia 17 per cent and Hungary an increase of nine per cent.

The larger and more established countries in the EU all saw a much more feeble increase: Portugal: 0.1 per cent, Germany: 0.5 per cent and The Netherlands 0.6 per cent.