Around 37,000 or 18% of the workforce is foreign, a position paper outlining the Malta Employers’ Association (MEA) strategic plan to address the demographic challenges facing the country has revealed.
The figure, the document says, is necessary to sustain economic growth, and will continue to grow as authorities adopt a more open door policy to foreign employees to combat labour shortages that are prevalent across all economic sectors.
According to Jobs Plus Chairman Clyde Caruana, Malta will require an additional 20k workers.
The paper also noted that economic growth, the influx of foreigners, together with the IIP scheme, are boosting domestic demand for goods and services which in turn is generating business opportunities for some – e.g. retailing, property – but may be affecting others negatively, for example through rising rental rates.
It has been observed that the increase in the foreign population in Malta was not foreseen and occurred in a haphazard manner; in fact at the start of this decade discussions on the sustainability of pensions did not even envisage that there might be 45k foreign employees working in Malta by 2020.
Identity Malta and Jobs Plus (previously ETC) were overhauled after they could not handle the requests of Third Country Nationals in Malta.
MEA noted that these demographic challenges are complex, multi-dimensional issues which touch upon all economic and social aspects of our lives; and insisted that MCESD should take the lead and provide research and guidance to the country’s political leaders
The scope of the paper is to kick-start a debate among the social partners with the objectives of establishing the extent of dependence and interdependence of population growth and economic growth in Malta.
It will also seek to anticipate the social and economic impact of an increase of the population living in Malta to 750k; propose policies and strategies for a managed transition to a sudden increase in population; analyse the sustainability of such a demographic change; project demographic changes for the next twenty years; open a discussion about the different models available for dealing with multiculturalism.
Discussions will tackle a multitude of issues including the economy, society and culture, demography, politics, environment, infrastructure, tourism, agriculture
It is recommended to adopt the following process to tackle these issues:
1. Set an MCESD meeting to discuss this paper to decide whether the social partners agree to pursue the matter.
2. Ask government for a budget to engage experts.
3. Establish a committee in conjunction with the University of Malta to set a timeline, supervise research and monitor progress.
4. Organise a national conference, inviting all stakeholders to present the findings of their respective areas.
5. Issue a publication with the papers presented by the different researchers/research teams. This publication will be edited by MCESD and will also include the input of the social partners following the presentation of the findings. The findings and proposals will be presented to Government and the Opposition. The publication will be made available to the general public.
6. There will be periodic follow-up meetings and activities organised by the MCESD to follow developments.