Citing an international study, the Nationalist Party said on Monday that Maltese workers report higher levels of workplace anxiety and stress than average EU country.
The PN referred to a study carried out by the multinational consulting firm Gallup on Monday. From these findings, the party in Opposition noted "more than half of workers in Malta experience high levels of stress in the workplace, to the detriment of both workers' health and productivity."
This study - the 2026 State of the Global Workplace Report - analysed the sentiments of the workforces across 160 countries around the world.
"Across several indicators, Malta ranks worse than many other countries, including European ones," the Nationalist Party said.
The study found that 57% of Maltese employees experienced stress a lot of the previous day, thus registering "among the highest levels of anxiety among workers," the PN said. By comparison, workers in Europe were found to be among the least stressed globally, at 39% indicating such sentiments. Meanwhile, the global average stood at 40%.
The PN said that this mark ranks as the second highest among southern European countries identified in the report; only Greece (61%) was found to have more stressed workers per capita than Malta.
The Opposition observed that although southern European workers experience high levels of stress, Malta (57%) is ranked worse than its neighbours Cyprus (56%), Italy (51%), Spain (47%), Lithuania (23%), Poland (22%), and Denmark (19%).
Malta was also found to perform worse than the European average in terms of workplace anger, with 22% of respondents in Malta reporting to have experienced anger a lot of the previous day, compared to the regional average of 15%. Malta's result is on par with the global average.
The report also evaluated levels of sadness at work. 18% of workers in Malta experienced sadness a lot of the previous day. This is a percentage point higher than the Europe regional average, though lower than the global average (23%).
The PN added that loneliness among workers was also evaluated. For this category, the number of Maltese workers who reported to be experiencing loneliness exceeded that of the average European country; 15% of those in Malta said they felt lonely a lot of the previous day, compared with 13% on average in Europe and 22% on average around the world.