Match made in Ħal Far is not always heavenly

Unemployed persons who are clearly disinterested in working need to be weeded out from genuine job seekers, according to the employers’ association.

But, while willing to step up its action to curb abuse, the Employment and Training Corporation in Ħal Far said it needed more feedback from employers.

“I needed someone with experience... and they sent over someone who had never stepped into a kitchen”- Owner of Valletta restaraunt

Malta Employers’ Association director general Joseph Farrugia said employers were sometimes faced with candidates who were clearly not interested in taking up a job.

“This is the type of abuse we would like to see curbed,” he said after posting a vacancy with the corporation. “The corporation can strike people off the register if it is proven they are not interested in getting a job and this screening process is very important.”

Corporation chief executive officer Claudio Farrugia explained that until the end of September, 352 people had been struck off the list after it was proven they were not interested in working.

Proving the apathy was difficult and the corporation received little feedback from employers, he said.

“Without this feedback it is very difficult for us to determine where we can improve our service. It also makes it difficult for us to take any action against persons who are potentially non-genuine.” He added that the corporation was exploring measures to curb abuse.

This year, the ETC carried out 3,000 inspections at work places to look into undeclared work and about 2,000 irregularities were found. A few weeks ago, The Sunday Times exposed flaws in the corporation’s system of matching employer and prospective employee in the football sector.

A football club that submitted a work permit application with the corporation for one of its foreign signings was sent a list of “prospective” footballers to be interviewed, including the CV of a plasterer.

Recently the owner of a Valletta restaurant, who preferred not to be named, said he posted a vacancy with the ETC because he needed a chef. “I said I needed someone with experience, who was qualified and they sent over someone who had never stepped into a kitchen,” the owner said. An unemployed man who is a qualified draghtsman said he had been out of a job for a couple of weeks. During several interviews through ETC he was told he was overqualified. He was even sent to an interview to work as a barman – a job he was not interested in.

How could such mis-matches take place?

Mr Farrugia explained that at times employers failed to fill in job requirements “and, therefore, it is much harder for the corporation to actually submit suitable clients since the criteria are left quite open”. He added that the requirements were fed into a database and an automatic match was generated with people on the corporation’s registers. There were minimum requirements a person had to possess to be eligible to register for a particular job.

The corporation was reviewing the process of screening and profiling jobseekers with a view to providing a more customised service in line with the jobseekers’ interests and competencies. This in turn will provide a better matching system leading to more effective job placements.