In a statement issued last week, the Nationalist Party claimed that the Prime Minister is trying to solve the problem of growing unemployment by increasing jobs in the public sector, and quoted statistics that show that the number of people seeking employment had increased during a year when 30 per cent of new jobs were in the public sector.

There is much more behind this trend, rather than a conscious attempt by the government to tackle unemployment by dishing out public sector jobs – a ‘solution’ that, as the PN statement said, leads to economic disaster.

A curious aspect of the unemployment figure in the past year is that it did not grow as a result of jobs lost, but grew while the number of gainfully employed increased as well. At first glance, this means that the economy is not growing enough to cater for the increase of the labour market.

I think there are other aspects that cannot be ignored, such as the increase in female participation in the labour market and the search for work in Malta by non-Maltese EU nationals that cannot be considered negligible.

There is also the problem of unemployability, with our education system still ‘producing’ adults with skills – or lack of them – that do not match the expectations of employers. This is a problem that the Minister of Education has acknowledged publicly.

Then there is the ‘mentality’ problem of some unemployed Maltese who think they have a right to pick and choose the right job and refuse anything that is not to their liking, whether as regards type of job or pay.

The hotel and catering industry is finding it has to rely on foreign workers because many of their jobs are not wanted by Maltese, not even by unemployed ones. This is incredible: the citizens of a country that has established itself as a prime holiday resort in the Mediterranean are resisting taking up the jobs created by tourism.

Last, but not least, is the large number of Labour supporters who are expecting a cushy job with the State, just as their parents got in the good old Mintoff days. It is an open secret that Labour ministers and MPs have been inundated with people asking for a job with the State since the Labour’s electoral victory last year. They want a ‘government job’ and nothing else will suffice.

They cannot be given but one of two answers. One of them is being told to go to blazes! The other answer – that is probably preferred by Labour MPs – rests on the fact that to qualify for such a job, one has to be registering as unemployed.

Indeed, I have the feeling that after the election, a number of people who were working in the black economy and never figured in any way in the job market statistics suddenly started to register for work so as to be in the queue for some cushy government job that translates into getting a monthly reward for doing nothing.

I have even heard of people with a stable job in the private sector abandoning their employment with some excuse or other, to start registering as unemployed. This, I think, is where Joseph Muscat finds himself caught between two stools.

Unfortunately, his government does not come across as one able to resist this pressure during its five-year tenure. In its first year it has already started to give in, albeit in small doses. Under the previous administration, government departments and state entities started farming out the provision of some services to private contractors rather than directly employing personnel – a system that is more cost effective for various reasons.

This has happened mostly in the provision of cleaning and security services. There have already been some state entities that have opted to directly employ security personnel: new employees who were picked up from – wonder of wonders – the unemployment register.

A large number of Labour supporters expect a cushy job with the State, just as their parents got in the good old Mintoff days

I do not think it is a coincidence that the companies that provide these services have been constantly lambasted by the General Workers’ Union, which accuses them of precarious employment methods. There is no doubt that some unscrupulous employers were finding loopholes in the law so that their labour cost was less than the minimum wage, but most of these loopholes have now been eliminated by legislation or by policy. Yet the GWU admits it prefers direct employment with the state rather than with private contractors providing services.

Muscat’s conundrum is the result of the tension between the two parts of the strange coalition that elected him: the old Labour supporters who believe that the State owes them a living and a house, and the so-called switchers who would have none of this nonsense. These feel that the government should motivate people to pull up their socks and go in for productive employment while intelligently handling the new challenge of foreigners competing for jobs.

Will Muscat’s tightrope walking trick of trying to satisfy both endure for another four years? If he falters and ends up bloating public sector employment, his will be a great fall, and all the Republic’s men and women will never put him together again.

micfal@maltanet.net