Malta Employers' Association calls on government to 're-engineer economy'

The Malta Employers’ Association (MEA) is urging government to provide a sense of direction and economic vision in light of challenges facing employers, including labour shortages and wage inflation.

Here, the MEA described government as an orchestra’s conductor, and called for government to step up to address a variety of challenges brought about by the current economic model, including pressure on infrastructure and higher labour turnover.

The MEA urged action during a presentation of its wage inflation survey findings, which sought to gauge employers’ perception on the labour market.

The survey, which was the first of its kind since 2018, sounded the alarm on the possibility of a wage-price spiral, which describes the phenomenon similar to a feedback loop where price increases lead to higher wages, which fuels demand for more goods, and further wage hikes.

As one might expect, foreign workers and their impact on the local workforce were heavily featured in this survey, as the survey shows that 24% of businesses have more than half of their workforce made up of foreign workers. This figure stood at 14% in 2019.

The survey also shows that employing foreign workers is employers’ most common method of dealing with labour market shortages, as 73% of respondents said that they make use of foreign workers to address this issue. Meanwhile, in 2019, only 58% of employers said that they employ foreign workers to address labour shortages.