Malta posts best jobs growth in eurozone

Malta registered the strongest employment growth among the 15-member eurozone in the first quarter of 2008.

Statistics published yesterday in Brussels by Eurostat - the EU's statistical arm - showed that Malta had a 4.5 percentage growth in employment when compared to the previous March.

Malta's results are much higher than the 1.6 per cent average registered in the euro area.

Its performance was also the second best when compared to the 26 other EU member states, outperformed only by Latvia which in March registered an annual growth of 5.6 per cent.

However, the annual average for the EU27 in March stood at 1.8 per cent.

Eurostat estimates that, in the first quarter of 2008, 226 million men and women were employed in the EU27, of which 145.7 million were in the euro area.