'Plateau' may have been reached in jobs sector - PM

Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi said this evening that Malta may have reached a plateau in the employment sector, with the number of new jobs balancing the number of dismissals.

Speaking in Parliament, he said the global economic situation was affecting Malta but the local economy was proving to be resilient and was moving forward. Although the employment situation was not as good as it was a year ago, figures given to him on a daily basis showed that redundancies and new jobs were balancing each other. There was no doubt, he said, that direct government intervention had saved thousands of jobs, and while one had to keep a watchful eye every day, he was cautiously optimistic.

Replying to Opposition questions after a statement on last week’s EU summit meeting, Dr Gonzi said the government had discussed the interest rates scenario with the local banks. While he could understand the concerns of those who complained about the banks not having adopted the latest rate cuts announced by the ECB, it was very important that the local banks continued to have a strong base of local depositors, but that could not happen if interest rates were lower than somebody else’s, Dr Gonzi said.