News • 23 February 2003

Only 34 per cent of women have jobs

Only 55 of every 100 people aged between 15 and 64 in Malta are working the National Office of Statistics has revealed.

The employment rate among women is much lower with 34 per cent working while 76.2 per cent of men in that age group work.

Although the figures must seem low, the number of people working actually increased by 2 per cent between September 2001 and the same month in 2002. Of these the number of employed women increased by 6.2 per cent.

It was revealed that the biggest increases were in the Public Administration, Defence and Compulsory Social Security Sector. A total of 10,774 were estimated to work in this sector in September 2001, and this number increased to 12,904 a year later.

During September 2002 the number of unemployed was estimated at 10,160 representing a 6.4 per cent rate. Among the unemployed 4.098 were aged between 15 and 24 years.

3,749 of the unemployed have been actively seeking work for less than three months.