This time of the year must be particularly disliked by employers. This is because there is a concentration of public holidays that disrupt the working week. Many also bridge the holiday with the weekend by using one day of vacation leave, to have four days of holidays at the price of one.

It happened on the feast of St Joseph the Worker, which fell on a Thursday, with many employees booking Friday as vacation leave. It will happen again on Freedom Day, which will fall on a Tuesday, and many have already booked the previous Monday as vacation leave.

Apart from these two holidays, this time of the year also includes Good Friday and 1 May, which means that within a space of six weeks there are four public holidays and result in four short working weeks.

It is an undisputed fact that Malta has one of the highest number of public or national holidays; too many, one may add. We have a total of 14 days, with the highest concentration being at this time of the year as explained above, and during the Christmas season, where it is even worse as we have four days of holidays in less than a month.

All this has created controversy in the past, and the matter has not died down yet although we have heard little about it of late.

Firstly, the introduction of a measure with which the government removed vacation leave compensation for holidays falling over a weekend is still very much of an issue among the unions, with the General Workers Union still insisting that the government is in the wrong.

Secondly, Malta must also be the only country where there are five national holidays, a legacy of our colourful political past. It is a problem that emerges from time to time, but we are still not politically mature enough to find a solution. It’s a good thing that Malta joined the EU on 1 May, which was already a public holiday, as otherwise we would have probably added a sixth national holiday.

Added to all this, we have a situation where government employees still work half-days during the summer. Although they make up for the lost hours in winter, having the government services shut down after 1.30pm between mid-June and the end of September is not ideal, even because this also affects productivity in the private sector.

With 14 days of public and national holidays, there are then 24 days of vacation leave for a total of 38 days away from work. This is nearly eight weeks of work or almost one sixth of a year – that workers are being paid while not being productive.

All this is without taking into consideration the number of days that are lost because of sick leave. While many workers hardly ever make use of their right to take sick leave, or do so when they really need to, many others abuse of the system and utilise the number of days they are entitled to take sick leave on full pay as if they were an addition to their vacation leave.

No doubt, this scenario is affecting our productivity and our competitiveness as a nation. For each and every worker to “lose” eight weeks of production every year – for which he or she is paid – is perhaps too much at a time when we need to pull our socks up in view of the international situation.

It is perhaps the time to review our situation before things get worse. It will be a hard battle, because the unions will not let go easily. But unions should be the first to understand that it is first and foremost their duty to protect jobs at risk – and jobs are or will be at risk more than they are at present if this situation persists.

The political solution with regard to the number of national holidays is also a difficult obstacle to overcome. But the two major parties need to come to terms... if they really have the national interest at heart.

But more about this tomorrow.