The number of foreigners living and working in Malta stood at 69,919 as of September 2020, Minister for Finance and Employment Clyde Caruana said in parliament on Tuesday. 

Answering a parliamentary question by PN MP Jason Azzopardi, Caruana said that out of this total, 31,513 came from European Union countries, while 38,406 were third-country nationals, meaning that they hailed from outside the EU. 

The year 2020 was notable because it is the first time shown in the data where the number of EU nationals living and working in Malta had decreased.  In fact, this number decreased by just over 5,000 when compared with 2019 – going back to levels similar to in 2017. 

It is also the first time where there were more foreigners hailing from outside the EU than there were hailing from within the EU. The Covid-19 pandemic is likely to have played a factor in this. 

The overall figure however has, regardless of the pandemic, been increasing year on year since 2013, when the count stood at 18,540 foreigners working in Malta. 

Meanwhile, in 2014, the total number of foreigners working in Malta stood at 23,408, followed by 29,145 in 2015, 35,738 in 2016, 44,467 in 2017, 55,571 in 2018 and 67,596 in 2019. All of these, except for 2020, were recorded in December of that same year. 

This means that the number of foreigners working in Malta has almost quadrupled since 2013.