For the first time in seven years, the number of people registering for work dropped to below the 6,000 mark.

Last week, the National Statistics Office reported that the number of officially unemployed people reached just 5,861 during the month of June. In 2004, more than 8,000 people used to register for work, and this number has since dropped steadily to fall below 6,000 in June.

The unemployment register is one of the measures with which the strength or otherwise of an economy is gauged. Judging by these results, it is clear that government policies are stimulating growth and encouraging investment, with the result that more jobs are being created.

The other side of the coin is that Malta still has the lowest participation rate when it comes to employment, particularly with regard to women. But the fact that the number of people registering for work continues to drop at a time when the working population is on the increase is very encouraging.

While it is hard to imagine that the unemployment level will continue to drop much more than it has done so far, everything possible should be done to conserve this present state of affairs – the constant rise in the number of new jobs being created and the constant drop in unemployment.

Such a result has been achieved at a time when Malta is undergoing a silent transformation in its industry. World developments have led many companies who had found it convenient to set up shop in Malta in the 1960s and 1970s to move to countries where the labour costs are cheaper. But the hundreds of jobs that have been shed in these circumstances were replaced by others in more modern areas of industry, such as the pharmaceutical and the information technology sector.

The closure and/or relocation of factories such as Denim Services, VF and Bortex some time ago could have flooded the country with unemployed people, but most of these have been absorbed in the same sector of industry while others have been retrained to move into other areas.

While it is always a sad story when workers lose their job, especially because the firm they are working with closes up, on the other hand it must be admitted that the shocks that were anticipated did not materialise. It is obvious that the workers suffered a harrowing experience when they were told that they would have been made redundant, but many of them took the challenge to find new employment elsewhere. Some took the opportunity to change type of job completely.

One other important factor that needs to be mentioned is that today, generally speaking, a job is not for life as it used to be a couple of decades ago. Today – and especially among the younger generations – job mobility is quite a common occurrence.

What seems to be the Achilles heel of the scenario is that people who are over 45 years of age are the ones who find it the most difficult to find a new job. In fact, the NSO statistics show that the over 45 category is the only sector where there was an increase in the number of people who register for work.

This is somewhat understandable, as employers seek to recruit younger people for various reasons, such as their enthusiasm and freshness as well as the greater possibility to mould them into a working environment.

But, on the other hand, people who are over 45 bring with them a wealth of experience that could be handy too, and with the right motivation they could turn out to be equally efficient in the work they carry out. Let us not throw them away because they still have a lot to contribute.