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

It said the public sector had even contributed to 35 per cent of the reported economic growth in the second quarter of this year while other economic sectors, including manufacturing, had in fact shrunk.

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