5,000 underemployed workers in Malta

Around 5,000 part-time workers in Malta wished to work more hours and were available to do in 2014, according to statistics compiled by Eurostat. This equates to 15.5% of the total number of part-time workers and 2.5% of the total workforce, lower than the EU averages of 22.2% and 4.5% respectively.

61% of these 5,000 part-time workers are women, again below the EU average of 67%.

A majority of part-time workers wished to work more hours while being available to do so in Greece (72.1%), Cyprus (65.9%) and Spain (57.3%). At the opposite end of the scale, the Netherlands (4.0%) registered by far the smallest share of underemployed part-time workers, followed by Luxembourg (10.5%), Denmark (10.7%), Estonia (11.2%) and the Czech Republic (11.4%).

Separate statistics show that 3,000 Maltese people were available to work but not seeking it. Eurostat statistics show that, as of 2014, 11.6 million economically inactive persons aged 15-74 in the EU could be considered as a potential additional labour force, equivalent to 4.8% of the EU labour force.

Among them, 9.5 million were available to work but not seeking, such as discouraged job seekers, and 2.2 million seeking work but not immediately available, for example students seeking a job to start after graduation. The majority of this almost 12 million total potential additional labour force in the EU in 2014 were also women (57%)