It was not a surprise at all.

The 2011 Worldwide Benefit and Employment Guidelines, published last week, showed that Maltese workers, together with their Austrian counterparts, have the most days off in the 62 countries covered by the exercise.

With 24 days of vacation leave and 14 public and national holidays (in Austria workers have 25 days’ leave and 13 holidays), Maltese workers enjoy the best deal with the government and employers who give them a livelihood.

At the other end of the scale, the Philippines and Canada have just 20 and 19 days off respectively, including both vacation leave and public holidays.

With a total of 38 days, Maltese workers have nearly eight weeks of holidays throughout a given year. Employers will say that this is too many.

Whether this state of affairs should continue is debatable, especially at a time when the economic situation around us is not healthy. But any suggestion for a decrease in these benefits will no doubt raise the ire of the unions. We all remember what happened a few years ago when the government decided not to continue giving an extra day’s leave when a public or national holiday fell on a weekend.

But unions should perhaps see the overall picture, rather that the interests of the workers on their own. The financial burden that employers have to carry because of this scenario is not insignificant. Employers in Malta have to sustain a situation in which workers work for 10 months out of 12, and in the prevailing circumstances it is not easy to do so.

It was the Nationalist government, soon after being elected in 1987, that increased the number of holidays and vacation leave. It is perhaps the time to review the situation, both in terms of vacation leave entitlement as well as the number of public and national holidays that we have. For one thing, we should decide to have just one national holiday, and not five.

In the wider context, we should consider whether, in this day and age, it is appropriate for Maltese workers to have so many holidays. Being away for nearly two months a year does affect productivity, and Malta’s production rate will get a big boost if workers spend more time at their place of work.

When the government decided not to allow for extra days of vacation leave to be given when public holidays fall on a weekend, it was calculated that Malta’s productivity would have risen by two per cent.