Companies caught employing people precariously risk being blacklisted and lose government contracts under proposals unveiled yesterday.

The proposals were made to the Malta Council for Economic and Social Development by the Director of Employment and Industrial Relations, Noel Vella, who also suggested that contractors should be made to pay their employees by direct bank transfers for there to be a verifiable money trail.

He called for an exercise to define precarious employment and update the employment and industrial relations law, which is now nearly 11 years old.

Dr Vella also suggested other measures that could help curb precarious employment, including rules for written and signed employment contracts, registration with the Employment and Training Corporation, the keeping of proper attendance records and an itemised payslip with details of how many hours had been worked and when.

This would leave an audit trail that any monitoring authority could trace, he said.

He suggested banning subcontracting. The successful contractor would have to provide the service entirely, using his own workers, without engaging others to do it on his behalf.

He told social partners that a low hourly rate alone was not evidence of precarious employment but was just an indication. Therefore, a bidding contractor cannot be disqualified purely on the basis of the hourly rate offered.

Dr Vella said the young, especially adolescents who were looking for a job to earn some money, the elderly, females and migrants were more prone to being offered, and accepting, precarious work.

He complained about the difficulty of obtaining reliable data on how prevalent precarious employment was on the island, particularly because of the lack of a proper definition. However, he warned against generalising too much and placing everyone in the same basket.

“Atypical” jobs such as part-time work, fixed-term employment, on-call and telework were on the increase, with more employers resorting to this to address work exigencies.

Public Dialogue Minister Helena Dalli said yesterday’s meeting was not the first of its kind because there were social partners that had their own studies, papers and opinions they wanted to table as part of the discussion.

The social partners unanimously agreed on the need to address the issue of precarious employment.

Employment and Industrial Relations Director, Noel Vella, front, with other officials at yesterday’s meeting. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli