Foreigners 18% of workforce, plan on population challenges to economy needed

Malta’s foreign worker population currently stands at around 37,000, or 18% of the total workforce. Moreover, Jobs Plus has recently announced that Malta will require an additional 20,000 foreign workers in the next five years, to meet economic demand.

In this regard, the Malta Employers' Association has today called for a strategic plan to address the demographic challenges facing Malta, and the impact they will have on various sectors.

Foreign workers are now considered necessary to sustain economic growth, the MEA said, and because of this the authorities are going for a more open door policy for foreign employees, in the face of a problem of labour shortage across all sectors of the economy.

The Association has published a position paper which suggests a number of social, economic, infrastructural and environmental areas which should be researched to determine the effect an increase in population to 750,000 will have on them, and how sustainable such a demographic change would be. 

“An increase in population is not a negative thing in itself,” MEA Director General Joseph Farrugia maintained, “but it is essential that Malta prepares and plans for it.”

He added that the position paper would strve to determine to what extent economic growth was dependent on an increase in population, and how such an increase would affect Malta.

In order to plan for and tackle these challenges, the MEA has drawn up a research proposal, which it also presented to the Malta Council for Economic and Social Development.

The proposal includes recommendations for the government to engage experts, for the organisation of a national conference where stakeholders can present their findings on their respective areas.