The number of people without a job has risen dramatically over the past year and could grow further this year before stabilising in 2011, according to a report released in Brussels yesterday.
Still, Malta's unemployment rate of seven per cent remains one of the lowest in the EU.
According to the EU Employment Situation And Social Outlook, there were 7,588 registered unemployed last November. Of them, 6,801 were in Malta - a year-on-year increase of 15.9 per cent - and 787 in Gozo, an increase of 7.7 per cent over November 2008. This is a rise of 988 unemployed in one year.
"Like other EU countries, Malta is being hit by the global recession and one of the sectors where this is being mostly felt is the employment area," a European Commission official said.
"However, despite this increase, Malta is still faring well when compared to the other member states. The island still enjoys the sixth lowest unemployment rate in the EU, 2.5 percentage points lower than the EU average," he said.
Worryingly, however, the economic recession is expected to continue putting more workers on the dole this year.
According to the Commission's autumn economic forecasts, "Malta's unemployment rate could rise further in 2010, to 7.4 per cent, before stabilising in 2011 at 7.3 per cent".
During the 12 months to November 2009, the unemployment rate in Malta rose by 0.8 percentage points to seven per cent. However, the youth unemployment rate was almost double at 13.8 per cent in the same month, up 1.6 per cent on November 2008.
According to the Commission's report, the picture with regard to older workers is bleaker and Malta has the lowest employment rate for those aged 50 and over in the EU. In the second quarter of 2009, just 24.2 per cent in this age group were working.
"Even so, this age category seems to have been less affected by the crisis than the overall population as the rise in unemployment was only 0.5 per cent on the same period in 2008," the report said.
The employment gender gap was unaffected by the recession.