Report sees major need for Malta to improve workers' skills
A Skills for the Future Report published today by the National Commission for Higher Education shows that 40,000 people will need to join the labour force and another 37,500 will be needed to replace retiring workers for Malta to achieve the EU Lisbon Strategy target of 70% of the Labour Force actively involved in employment.
The report says that the seven priority areas identified by the government in its Vision 2015 had the potential of creating 30,000 jobs - a shortfall of 50%. The priority areas are tourism, financial services, health services, education, communications and IT, manufacturing and Gozo as an ecological island.
It adds that according to a report on the required worker qualifications in EU member states in 2015, 20% of workers in the EU would have low qualifications; 49% would have medium qualification and 29% high. In Malta, 75% of the labour force had low qualifications, and this thus presented a major challenge for Malta's competitiveness.
For Malta to reach the required EU labour force qualifications forecast, it would require 55,000 more highly qualified workers, 99,000 more medium and 77,000 fewer low qualified workers. (low qualification are up to lower secondary standard; medium are upper secondary and post-secondary non tertiary and high is tertiary education).
The report says Malta needs more research to anticipate skills gaps; more synergy between education business and governemnt agencies; professional guidance services in schools and further education institutions; and more responsiveness in the education sector to address areas in which skill gaps were identified.
The report was presented by commission chairman Philip von Brockdorff.
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M. Dalli
Mar 2nd 2009, 21:23
Government policies unfortunately do not encourage mobility for those who seek working opportunities abroad to acquire more skills or experiences. They only favour the managerial positions as they can return to their job in Malta after 10 years. Young workers who want to better their skills by new experiences abroad are not given the same number of years to return to their country. This is a great missed opportunity for Malta where human resources are being wasted, not directed to better the young or unskilled labour force and neither to have a long-term labour strategy. Maltese workers are often found to be hard-working, reliable and multi-lingual but sadly they are not looked for to return by their own country who has paid for their education. What a waste of money!
Joseph M. Muscat
Mar 2nd 2009, 20:21
MCAST is providing quite a lot of educational Courses in various skills, but when the students graduate some would never join the main stream workforce: the principle reason being that to progress in your skill you have to be under the umbrella of a Parrinu, that is for progression in Malta it has a high odour of nepotism especially in certain jobs or positions.
S. Calleja
Mar 2nd 2009, 13:03
This is no surprise, considering that even the few highly skilled worker Malta produces leave to work in other countries. From personal experience, I can tell you that a good proportion of my graduate friends, who hold first, post-graduate and doctorate degrees, have already settled down elsewhere, where they feel their skills are put to better use. They also have no intention of coming back, at least not in the foreseeable future. Reason? It's not just an issue of money. The most common complaint I hear is that they wanted to get away from the closed mentality of mediocracy ruling this country, "kollox jgħaddi" attitude, and the Middle Aged attitude of not having a fully secular state. On a positive note, they think that Malta makes a great holiday place, but then again it doesn't offer much value for money. I will soon move away to set up my small IT business elsewhere too, where I can find better funding opportunities and better prospects for international contacts, besides improving my standard of living multifold. It's sad for this country to lose good people, but we're just a 27km island, and some things will never change.
J. Tonna
Mar 2nd 2009, 13:01
In my opinion what is needed is to persuade employers to start accepting trainees or appretices for future employment with them. In this way they will be assured that when an amployee leaves, due to retirement etc, a new employee will be already trained to take his job.