Foreigners take on low-paid jobs as Maltese stay away

Education and employment minister Louis Galea said yesterday that the Employment and Training Corporation was constantly refusing requests by employers to take on foreign workers, but it was becoming increasingly evident that many Maltese simply did not want to take on low paying jobs.

Reacting in Parliament to opposition questions over how the number of work permits for foreigners had shot up, even in the case of non-EU nationals Dr Galea said preference was always given to Maltese workers, but sometimes there was no choice but to employ foreigners.

He could produce a list of employers who had told the ETC that Maltese workers whom the corporation had sent to fill their vacancies refused to work and pleaded for certificates to show that they were unsuitable, Dr Galea said.

He asked what Labour would do about this situation if it was returned to power. Would it raise the minimum wage? And what would the consequences of such a decision be?

The comments were made at the end of a two sitting debate on the financial estimates of the Employment and Training Corporation.

At the opening of the debate, Dr Galea said the ETC would for next year have a budget of Lm4.8 million, including funds of over Lm3.3 million from European programmes.

He said the corporation this year had registered 8,738 job vacancies, a 16 per cent increase over last year, and found jobs for 3,363 job seekers.

ETC officials drew up job profiles for 2,512 workers registering for work in Malta and 676 in Gozo.

The ETC was engaged in promoting not just the job vacancies available in Malta but also in the EU's institutions through EURES, the European Employment Service.

The ETC in the last financial year also issued 2,223 work permits to EU citizens, 701 to people enjoying temporary humanitarian protection, 80 to asylum seekers, 72 to refugees and 11 to dependants of EU citizens. Another 3,006 permits were issued to people from third countries.

Dr Galea said economic development and job creation remained priorities for the government. The past year had seen a record 139,000 in gainful employment, while the number of registered unemployed had remained static at around 7,000 for several years.

The past few months had seen a record level of foreign investment, the deficit had been reduced and the average wage had gone up by 3.35 per cent.

The number of workers in the public sector had dropped by 4,250 from 2003, while private-sector employment grew by 5,300.

Referring to the Lisbon Agenda scoreboard, Dr Galea said figures on participation in the labour force should be treated with caution, not least because people aged 15 and 64 were considered to be part of the labour force by international statistics whereas in Malta they were not. Furthermore, the Maltese government was encouraging young people to further their studies rather than opt for employment. Indeed, 70 per cent of 17-year-olds were now opting to continue their studies.

It was true that women's participation in the gainfully-occupied population was low, but one had to understand local circumstances. Nonetheless, efforts to raise this figure were paying off. It was pertinent to note that 56 per cent of the university student population was made up of women. In the budget, the government was, for the second year, also taking measures to encourage more women to work.

The new measures included funds for childcare centres, which were still lacking in Malta, even in the private sector. He said that while the socio-economic framework should make it easier for women to go out to work, one should not force women to do so.

Malta's problems, Dr Galea said, did not relate only to unemployment. Employment trends were shifting, notably to IT and financial services, and some sectors were not finding enough workers.

The minister said that in view of the employment shifts, the ETC was giving a lot of importance to its training courses. A total of 6,015 people were trained between October 2005 and September 2006, along with 748 others in Gozo.

Night, technical and management courses were attended by over 2,000 people. A development which would have positive consequences was the creation of the national qualifications system so that people seeking employment would go to the market with competence certificates which would be universally recognised. Thus, when employers advertised vacancies they should start listing the level of competence being sought.

Karl Chircop, the opposition's spokesman on employment, said the ETC served most of its obligations well, but some situations needed to be explained.

For example, why had some of the money made available by the European Social Fund not yet been used?

Why had job matching figures declined over the past year? Why had the number of work permits issued to non-EU residents shot up to 5,400 in eight months? Were these workers the victims of exploitation?

Women's participation in the labour force was still the lowest in the EU. The PN government had done nothing about this problem for years, and it was only in the last two budgets that it tried to address the problem, although much hard work remained to be done. There needed to be more jobs for women, and the government should invest in affordable child-care centres accessible to working women.

The population of primary schools was declining because the birthrate was decreasing. The government should therefore utilise these resources as child-care centres.

At the same time the regulation of child-care centres needed to be modern and practical.

On youths, Dr Chircop said the number of those aged 16-24 registering for work was officially over 2,000, meaning that around 30 per cent of the unemployed were young people. But the real figure was much higher because thousands of youths not entitled to unemployment benefits did not bother to register. Without reflecting on the ETC or its staff, he said the organisation should embark on more effective campaigns to get such youths to approach it for help and training. Too many youths had no knowledge of such schemes, thus defeating the ETC's raison d'être.

It was also important that MCAST was expanded to take on more students. Every year, hundreds of young people were finding doors closed and fell into the ETC's lap.

Also important was the need for better student counselling so that they could be directed to the careers where openings were available. Employability should be kept in mind through the student's school life, rather than just late in the day.

Dr Chircop observed that the number of long-term unemployed had, officially, decreased to 2,571, but again this was far from the truth. All those who were struck off the unemployment register and re-registered were not shown as being long-term unemployed.

Dr Chircop said the high rate of unemployment in Gozo, at over 700, was worrying. He insisted that the minister should present a detailed report on the labour market situation in Gozo over the past five years.

He said Labour believed strongly in the ETC's Employment Advisory Services, but those involved should be professionally prepared to do the job

Hundreds of people had been called to supposedly advisory sessions at the Catholic Institute in Floriana, but these sessions had degenerated into a rehash of what the ETC was already supposed to know.

This had not been an employment advisory service but an exercise to reduce the official number of the unemployed.

Dr Chircop observed that the number of ETC job placements had dropped from 4,500 to 3,500 over the past year. What was happening? Was the ETC not keeping up with demand? Was the job market not offering enough opportunities to prospective workers? Had the time come for the ETC to work in partnership with private companies to increase placements? Had the time come for the private agencies to work on guidelines to be provided by the National Qualifications Council?

Dr Chircop pointed out that there were some 500 people who had been struck off the employment register without enough justification for a strike-off. This confirmed that many strike-offs were done without justification.

The Labour MP insisted that the National Employment Authority, which considers appeals from strike-offs, should be reformed. There were instances where mistakes by employers would be noted by the same employer to the ETC, but the corporation still refused to correct the mistake if an appeal would have already been lodged. Moreover, when an appeal took longer than a month to be decided but was then upheld, the person concerned should not just be given the money owed, but also interest.

Dr Chircop said the opposition agreed that tough measures should be taken against people caught working without a permit, but he doubted how much this work should be done by the ETC. What was keeping the government from setting up an alternative structure bringing together a number of relevant bodies, including the police?

He noted that the number of people caught working without a permit continued to drop for the third consecutive year from 404 to 334 to 219.

The number of people struck off the register also dropped from 2,142 to 1,543. But the number of inspections had increased. Was this because the election was coming soon? On the other hand, the number of foreigners caught working illegally increased constantly.

Turning to employment permits, Dr Chircop said he had reservations about how certain permits were being given to foreigners.

He could not understand, for example, how hundreds of permits were being issued to Bulgarians and Filipinos to work at the shipyards when many Maltese who used to work there had been forced into early retirement.

He proposed the setting up of a follow-up monitoring system to ensure foreigners kept to their permit conditions.

On training, he said the ETC should have a subcommittee which would include a representation of employers to see in which areas people were to be required so that the relative training would be given.

A task force between the ETC, MCAST and the ITS should be set up to make serious recommendations on apprenticeship schemes. The situation of national qualifications should also be tackled for the benefit of people who had no qualifications.

Dr Chircop said that the Employment Exposure Scheme and the Supported Employment Scheme had been successful. What was to become of them.

The government, he said, was playing with figures to give the wrong impression that the employment market was doing well. It was well known that many of the new jobs were actually part-time.

What had become of the national employment plan?

Concluding, Dr Chircop said the problem of foreign workers had to be addressed. It was not right for Maltese nationals to spend years registering for work when there were foreign workers doing jobs that the Maltese could handle.

Competitiveness Minister Censu Galea said education was key to employability and the nation's economic growth. The ETC and the Education Division had merged several programmes to better train workers. At the same time between 2000 and 2005 the number of youths continuing their studies between the ages of 20 and 24 years had risen from 40.7 to 53.7 per cent.

Mr Galea said one had to question the number of long-term unemployed, especially when employers in certain trades, such as hotels and catering, said they lacked the workers they needed. The truth was that some people preferred to receive unemployment benefits and do odd jobs on the side. On the other hand, certain employers expected to recruit people who already had experience, which was not always easy. The ETC was helping in this sphere by getting placements where the unemployed could get experience in one trade or another for a few months.

The ETC's redeployment scheme was also helping people who had experienced the trauma of losing their jobs. More than 460 over 40s had been given exposure to new skills.

Leo Brincat (MLP) said that whether or not SmartCity became a reality, and he augured that it would, Malta needed to have enough human resources for its future needs, and training should be addressed accordingly.

The transformation to an information society would not come about if there were not enough skilled workers. Basic computer skills were not enough; the challenge facing the country was not only to spread computer literacy but the quality leap to computer proficiency.

The ETC needed to have an ICT employment strategy that would identify trends in labour force needs in the IT sector. Among them were consultancy services, software specialisation and project management.

Teleworking was another concept which needed to be promoted better in Malta.

The ETC should also make its input in the Corradino incubation centre, which needed to be modernised.

On SmartCity it was important not only to know the number of jobs it would create but their nature.

Mr Brincat said there should be a level playing field between the ETC and private training providers, and it was important that ETC people involved in IT training had a proper knowledge of the subject.

Nationalist MP Michael Asciak pointed to several incentives aimed at encouraging workers to go to work and helping employers take on new people. The problem was to encourage people who were not interested in finding a job to do so. The problem sometimes was that the difference between the minimum wage and unemployment benefit was too narrow. One had to see how to encourage these people to find a problem job rather than work on the black economy.

Dr Asciak said many women opted to stay at home not because they did not want to work but because they felt they had a vocation to bring up their family. This should be valued. These women could perhaps be offered work they could do from home.

Carmelo Abela (MLP) insisted that the link between the education and employment sectors should be stronger.

Some people were refused to register for employment because they did not realise the importance of following a training course. The government, therefore, should encourage more people to register for work. In doing so they would be offered training which would increase their chances of employment.

Mr Abela observed that just under half of the unemployed were seeking elementary jobs. This was another challenge for the corporation because it was more difficult to employ such people.

He said more employers should be encouraged to run apprenticeship schemes.

Marie Louise Coleiro Preca (MLP) underlined the importance of research to guide the ETC in its activities.

The ETC annual report showed that almost a third of registering unemployed were youths between 16 and 24: this reflected problems in the education system in spite of the millions being spent on it. Many families would like their offspring to continue their studies, but dire financial straits compelled the children to go to work.

Unemployed clerical and technical workers were also increasing, as were other categories, and this was especially worrying because these were not unskilled workers. Even some university graduates were facing these problems, and many of them had to take on jobs for which they were over-qualified.

The increase in part-time work as primary employment was also very worrying, especially the way it had shot up rather than simply increased.

Mrs Coleiro Preca said the ETC needed to raise its guard and inform the Industrial Relations Department of more employment abuse, such as instances where companies owned by the same people employed the same person on two identical part-time jobs, meaning the worker worked practically the same hours as a full-timer but with inferior conditions.

She congratulated the ETC for eliminating the hardship suffered by people who were struck off the unemployment register through no fault of their own.

She felt that the employment termination form should be redesigned because it was too restrictive in the field of the reasons of termination.

The system of profiling the unemployed also needed to be improved.

She had reports of labourers having been interviewed for training courses and ending up in courses for management.

Mrs Coleiro Preca also referred to the training of rehabilitated drug abusers, saying that while some former abusers could be quickly trained to embrace new skills, people who would have abused for many years would need a longer period of retraining.

Winding up, Dr Galea referred to the comments on the low female participation rate in the labour force and said that government efforts to raise the number of female workers were slowly, but surely, paying off. The country's social model was still developing - many men still had to get used to their wives going out to work - and it would be a mistake to accelerate it too much.

Women wishing to return to work were being given several incentives and the trend towards careers by women was very evident in the education sector.

Turning to young people, Dr Galea said the ETC ran basic skills courses for early school leavers. Furthermore, the number of apprentices had gone down because students in the first year of MCAST were full time and those following an apprenticeship scheme were therefore no longer considered as being apprentices, There were also youths who did not opt for apprenticeship schemes but for full time courses at MCAST.

On Gozo, Dr Galea said the ETC had found jobs to for quite a number of workers and more than 700 had followed training courses.

The estimates were later approved after a division.