“It is not a matter of blame. It is a matter of change.”
These two short sentences sum it all up. They were said by Investments, Industry and IT Minister Austin Gatt in his short address during the laying of the foundation stone of Lufthansa Technik’s new facility at Luqa airport, and repeated yesterday in an interview given to The Malta Independent.
He was referring to the transformation that the Maltese industrial base is undergoing, perhaps at a faster rate than we would like it to, but which nonetheless is changing the whole scenario of our economy.
Some roads are being closed, but other avenues are opening up, and it is up to us to understand the changing times and take up the challenge. It is useless crying over spilt milk; we just have to move on.
The saddest part of it all is that this change does bring about hardship. The people who are losing their jobs – as many have done over the past few months in companies such as Denim Services, VF Jeanswear and Bortex – will probably fail to accept such a situation, and this is understandable.
Losing a job is a trauma that is hard to live with, especially if that job is the one you had been doing all your life, and one that you enjoyed. That job also guaranteed the income needed by the employee and his or her family, and it is therefore understandable that the hundreds who are losing their jobs are viewing things differently.
It is difficult for them to see the situation objectively, as they are the ones who have to pack up and go, and start a new life. The unknown always brings about anxiety and stress, perhaps fear too, and this is why people who lose their jobs need all the support they can get to start a new chapter in their lives.
Again, it is easy to look at it this way from the outside, but on the other hand it must also be admitted that the jobs that are being lost in some areas are being created in others. Official figures indicate that the number of people registering for work has not fluctuated much, upwards or
downwards, and if it did after an unusually large number of people were made redundant, it stabilised again within a relatively short period of time.
This means that, generally speaking, people who are losing their job in sectors that Minister Gatt described as being low-end, are finding employment elsewhere. They are probably being retrained, have learnt new skills and have found a different job that may even pay better than the one they had before.
Large companies have left, and there will be more, but others have opened up shop here and are deciding to expand their activities after spending a few months on the island, knowing full well that the potential is there and, after all, Maltese
workers have always shown they are quick learners and hard workers, given the right motivation.
Maltese people also have the advantage of being fluent in English, and this no doubt does help tip the balance in our favour when foreign companies are about to make up their minds about their offshore investment.
The more time that passes, the more we will hear of companies having to close down because they can be more competitive if they move elsewhere, and the more we will hear of other companies opening in Malta in other sectors that are, today, more suited to our economy and the way it is developing.
We can either sulk and refuse to accept the way things are going – and in the end lose what we have anyway – or else we can pull our socks up and equip ourselves to meet the challenge of change.
It’s up to us.