In 2016, there were over 400 i-gaming companies registered in Malta and with considerable growth still forecast in the sector, recruitment has become an opportunity and a challenge.
Unibet
Denise Cutajar – HR advisor
How many staff do you have now and how many do you anticipate having in two years time?
The Unibet Group currently employs 1,150 employees representing 48 nationalities, 350 of whom are based in Malta. We anticipate this number to grow around 15 per cent in the next two years.
How many are Maltese? What could Malta/University do to increase that number?
Fifteen per cent of our employees are Maltese (based in Malta) while across the group, five per cent of our total workforce is Maltese. Our Malta office operates mainly our customer service department which services over 27 different nationalities. Therefore our workforce needs to have specific language skills which forces us to hire from abroad. The small majority of Maltese employees we have in Malta work mainly in finance, HR and player safety areas which the local University already caters for. As a digital company, we often embark on data sharing for academic research in several areas including consumer protection particularly in the field of responsible gaming. This mutually benefitting cooperation with university faculties (both locally and abroad) sets the way for possible future employment of researchers with our company. Needless to mention that as a group that is actively engaged in cutting edge technology together with responsible gaming does in itself attract considerable interest from university students or graduates interested in starting a rewarding career.
What is your experience with non-EU workers? How hard is it to get a visa for them?
Our experience concerning non-EU workers hasn’t been the easiest. There is a thorough process involved in order to justify why we have chosen candidates outside the EU. It can easily take up to 4-5 months until we manage to get a visa for non-EU citizens which proves very frustrating especially if the role in question is critical for the business. Also, being able to attract and employ skilled workers from all over the world is imperative for most businesses, but crucial for digital companies such as Unibet.
Betting Connections
Kay Vella – head of recruitment
Which skills are most sought after by gaming companies which are not available in Malta?
The biggest need for candidates from abroad, or indeed expats already in Malta, is language requirements. With an industry that spans across so many markets, there are a large amount of multilingual vacancies in Malta which require fluent levels of languages such as German, Swedish, Norwegian, French, Danish and many more.
In addition to this, with the industry being based largely online, there is an ever growing need for IT professionals with vast experience with a variety of web technologies. While there is a large amount of IT candidates based locally, the pool of candidates with the newest technologies is small, so it is a very competitive market. However, this is also a fantastic opportunity for locally-based job seekers to join an industry at the cutting edge of technology and further develop their skills base and career within IT.
There is a wealth of experience and variety of skills available on the island already and many roles based here are filled with locally based job seekers. With a fantastic talent pool available within Europe, candidates from outside of the EU are rarely needed, however, some positions have specific needs for non-EU candidates, such as language based skill sets – Turkish, Chinese as an example – although we always focus our efforts on locally based and EU nationals first.
Paddy Power Betfair
Antoine Bonello – managing director – Malta
How many staff do you have now and how many do you anticipate having in two years’ time?
Due to the effectiveness of Paddy Power Betfair’s operations in Malta, we are currently expanding rapidly. We are looking at increasing headcount from 150 (January 2016) to approximately 300 heads by end of 2016. We anticipate headcount to potentially hit 400 heads by 2018.
How many are Maltese? What could Malta/University do to increase that number?
Nearly two-thirds of our workforce is Maltese and not higher simply due to specific native language requirements for servicing certain markets. We have acknowledged that we will not find the trained resource we need and therefore invest significantly in training and upskilling internally.
Malta needs an educational system that produces logical thinkers, with a can do approach and the confidence to challenge; backed with the entrepreneurial spirit and hunger to do better for oneself and for others. This would then make it so much easier for University to adapt to specific industry needs and for companies themselves to upskill staff where there are gaps in the market.
Tipico
Manuela Abela – talent acquisition manager
Which skills are most sought after by gaming companies which are not available in Malta?
These tend to vary depending on the roles we would be hiring for. However, most commonly, typically we struggle with positions that require specific languages, in our case mostly German, highly technical and very senior industry specific roles such as software developers, BI developers, international lawyers, executives and any position that requires German speaking.
At Tipico, a third of the current workforce in the Malta office are Maltese, around 70 employees. Currently we have 28 different nationalities in the local office, including German, English, Italian, French, Spanish, Swiss, Belgian, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Serbian, Irish, Polish, Turkish, US, Portuguese and Russian.
Konnekt
Etienne Gatt – IT & iGaming recruitment manager.
Which skills are most sought after by gaming companies which are not available in Malta?
As one would assume, software development and infrastructure related jobs are always in high demand within the gaming industry. On the other hand, the highly populated nature of the industry escalates the importance of providing the best possible user experience with a view to leverage on usage and secure market share. In this context, skills related to design, such as, UX and UI are also very high in demand. While both skills are available in Malta, the overall challenge is the availability of talent to meet the large demand on the market.
Has the number of Maltese recruited for gaming companies increased over the past five years?
The number of roles for gaming companies has increased overall during the past years. The Maltese candidate is generally regarded as highly skilled and multi-talented. The general perception about our labour workforce is excellent. There are roles requiring the native use of a particular language that favours the recruitment of foreign nationals but in general cases, Maltese candidates stand equal chances to secure employment in this industry, in a labour market characterised by multinational candidates.
From which countries do you get recruits? EU and non-EU?
The general low supply of candidates in highly sought-after positions is a market condition experienced almost Europe wide. While the shift of candidates of different nationalities, seeking employment in Malta, is a constant, Konnekt has also successfully assisted candidates relocating from non-EU countries. Such countries vary from East European countries to South America and North Africa. Malta is most often regarded as a country with excellent living conditions and a strong economy for individuals coming from countries where either high unemployment or weak economies characterise their homeland.
iGaming Elite
Dean Nicholls – CEO
Which skills are most sought after by gaming companies which are not available in Malta?
That’s a very interesting question. Mainly because there is a discrepancy between what individuals’ perceived skills are and the talent that is available on the market that would add value to our client base.
iGaming Elite is not a high street agency; we are a boutique search and selection consultancy helping businesses grow talent internally, mainly through headhunting.
If I had to split the question into two segments, one being online gaming suppliers and the other operators, then the answer would be very different.
Firstly, suppliers really struggle to find product specialists, mathematicians, tech individuals to work and help improve their respective products. Individuals that are required to have a very specific technical skill set are difficult to find in Malta, not impossible, but difficult. Eastern European countries in particular have had a surge in producing very talented technical individuals, among other jurisdictions.
On the operator side, I think Malta is very well covered for general developers, marketers, designers and artists etc. However, there are a few languages with a real shortage, Norwegian, German to mention just a couple.