Jobs increase, yet financial and economic situation remains unstable – Tonio Fenech

The Finance Ministry welcomed an announcement by the National Statistics Office saying that full-time employment increased and registered unemployment fell in April.

In its statement, the NSO said that full-time employment in April up by 2,998 compared to last year, while those registering for unemployment drops by 1,021 for the same period.

The Ministry said that given how 2,000 people had also retired during the past 12 months, this means that during that period “around 6,000 new jobs were created.”

Despite welcoming the figures, Finance Minister Tonio Fenech said that while the results deliver good indications on the economic performance of the country, he warned that the “international economic and financial situation still remains very unstable.”

He said that statistics dealing with the second quarter of 2011 show that the European economy grew by only 0.2%.

“Malta depends greatly on what happens around us, and this is why we need to remain vigilant on what transpires abroad and responsibly decide which the best choices for the country are,” Fenech said.

Referring to the NSO’s figures, Fenech said the most positive aspect of the figures is how the private sector “has remained a motor for the creation of jobs and how the sectors that contributed to this result are varied.”

He said that private sector jobs increased by 2,262 thanks to the commercial activities, while the public sector also increased by 1.8% over the previous year, “an increase that was concentrated almost exclusively in crucial sectors such as education, health, and social work.”

Fenech said that “these results are no coincidence” adding that during the last three years, Malta “faced considerable challenges” but despite this continued to attract foreign investment an d carry out capital investment projects.

He said that the government also improved Malta’s competitiveness.

“These results were possible also because we increased incentives for local business owners, who played their part in the creation of jobs,” Fenech said.

He said that around 10% of the increase in employed individuals found a job because around 700 Maltese and Gozitan business owner benefited from a MicroInvest scheme, where they jointly invest €12.8 million.