Private jobs under Labour register record growth

Labour has been the most successful government in generating private sector jobs, even as it presided over the largest public sector employment growth in 14 years, a glance at statistics of the gainfully employed shows.

The employment growth in the public and private sectors was calculated using data available from the National Statistics Office.

Statistically, Labour presided over the largest growth in the public sector when government jobs increased by 4.9% in 2014 over 2013, when the party took power: over 1,000 new jobs were created in government in 2013, and then another 2,047. This year the number stands at 356 up until July.

These increases reversed a decade of public sector job reduction that was only halted in 2011 when the Nationalist government presided over a 1.1% growth in public sector jobs.

But before that, the public sector was decreased consistently from 47,888 in 2002 to 40,983 jobs in 2012: a total decrease of 16% in government jobs.

But Labour has also presided over the largest ever growth in private sector employment, by 6% from 2014 when jobs increased from 119,617 to 127,418 up until July 2015 – the latest available data. The year before it grew by 4,052 or 3.5%.

Taking all PN administrations after 2002, under Eddie Fenech Adami and Lawrence Gonzi private job growth registered an average 2.3% annual growth over 11 years, while public jobs fell by an annual average 1.2%.

Since 2013, Labour has recorded the largest ever growth in jobs for women, at 6.7% over 2014, and growing by 5.8% over 2013.

Labour also registered the highest ever job growth for Gozo, at 5.6% between 2013 and 2014.

Where jobs increased

IMF warnings and PN concerns

The marked increase in public sector jobs under Labour has not gone unnoticed, with the International Monetary Fund’s latest staff report remarking that the government should keep the increased salary outlay in check.

What the IMF warns about is that increased spending on jobs makes Labour’s debt reduction programme harder to attain. But the medicine it prescribes has also raised concerns with the Opposition.

“The authorities should ensure that public sector wage negotiations will not result in increases higher than inflation and complete the ongoing and planned spending reviews,” the IMF said in business-talk – which means keeping government wages as stable as possible.

Earlier this week, shadow finance minister Mario de Marco said the IMF’s warning was tantamount to a freeze in public sector wages.

“The data shows that low unemployment figures have only been achieved with an increase in government employment. The IMF has now suggested that the government freezes wages in collective agreement negotiations,” de Marco said.

According to NSO data, the number of registered unemployed in 2015 fell to 4,615 from 7,382 in 2013.

But de Marco claims the unemployed were removed from the register and shifted into a work-benefits scheme that does not even guarantee a productive job placement.

In a reference to MaltaToday’s survey on concerns – which found jobs to be a concern for 7.1% of respondents, and even low income a serious concern for 10% of respondents, up seven points since September – de Marco said the government “must talk about jobs… the average salary in sectors that employ thousands has gone down over the past two and a half years”.

Still, the decrease in unemployment is far outweighed by the scale of private sector jobs that have been created.

On its part, the Labour Party says the data shows that dependence on public sector employment has decreased by 26.7% when eight out of every 10 jobs created were in the private sector.

Additionally, the most recent Labour Force Survey shows an improvement in salaries of 2.4% or €550 in 2015 after taking into consideration inflation at 0.9% – a reversal of the PN’s last year in power, when average salaries increased by 1.9% but were bogged down by 2.4% in inflation.