The new Aviation Park would be inaugurated next week and would create hundreds of new jobs, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi said yesterday.

There are people who still cannot find employment

The €17 million project would generate jobs in the industry which not only focused on planes but also on high-end skills, Dr Gonzi said during a political discussion in Senglea.

Chaired by former General Workers Union official Josephine Attard Sultana, the meeting, which marked Workers Day, revolved around employment and the government’s investment in the sector.

Even though 20,000 jobs had been created in the past four years, there were still people who found it hard to find employment, Dr Gonzi said. “We can’t forget these people but we have to find solutions”.

Earlier this year, the government had tackled the loophole of precarious employment through a legal notice that reduced the number of people who could be registered as self-employed.

“There are employers who make their workers register as self-employed to avoid giving them leave and sick leave and overtime but this legal notice changed that,” Dr Gonzi said.

Workers that had five out of eight of the listed requirements in the “radical” law were classified as full-time employees and were eligible to all benefits. The legal notice also tackled the practice where employees were listed as part-timers for different companies which belonged to the same owner. “People with these contracts are eligible to all the benefits,” he added.

Malta had one of the lowest unemployment rates in Europe, an achievement that came about partly through a number of incentives such as MicroInvest, MicroCredit and Business First schemes that created new jobs, he said.

Dr Gonzi encouraged people to continue studying and training, saying that no one was too old to learn. He also urged people to try for the government scholarships – of which around 1,500 have been granted so far.