Malta’s unemployment rate has been among the lowest in the European Union for a number of years and it remained stable only because the government employed 2,000 people in the civil service in the past year, the Nationalist Party said.

It said in a statement that the public sector had even contributed to 35 per cent of the reported growth in the second quarter of the year while several other economic sectors, including manufacture, shrunk.

The PN said that in trying to portray the figures as an achievement, the government was making a blatant attempt to deceive the people and hide the country real and economic challenges.