Government should pay maternity leave - MEA

The government should start paying the maternity leave benefits, the Malta Employers’ Association said.

The association is proposing that from the next budget and over a transitional period of four years, the cost of paying for maternity leave – which currently stands at 14 weeks - will be shifted to the government.

MEA said that Malta was one of the few countries where maternity leave was paid by the employer, and the prospect of an extension of such leave, which was being discussed at EU level, threatened to increase costs to employers and also to create a disadvantage for women seeking employment.

The association added that if the obligation for female employees to work for six months after the maternity leave was going to be removed, as was being said by some MEPs, employers should not pay for maternity leave as the employee would not be required to work after the maternity leave would have expired.

To be competitive, employers had to have a level playing ground with competing companies operating in other countries where maternity leave was paid by the government.

This proposal is one of a package that are to be presented to MCESD in the coming days.