The difference between the employment rate for Maltese nationals and that of non-EU citizens living here is relatively marginal, unlike in the majority of EU member states, according to Eurostat.

While the employment rate of Maltese people stood at 65 per cent, in the case of non-EU citizens it was 63.8 per cent last year.

For citizens from another EU member state it stood at 53.4 per cent.

On average, the employment rate across the EU of non-EU citizens was 56.1 per cent, compared with 68.9 per cent for citizens of the reporting country.

The share of employees, aged 20 to 64, having a temporary contract in the EU was higher for citizens of another member state (16.4 per cent) than for nationals (12.4 per cent).

This was also true for the proportion of part-time employment (24 per cent citizens of another member state, compared with 18.4 per cent for nationals).

The unemployment rate of citizens of another EU member state, aged 20 to 64, stood at 12.2 per cent, as against 10 per cent for nationals.

Long-term unemployment was, however, notably lower for citizens of another EU member state, standing at 40 per cent when compared to 49.4 per cent in the case of nationals.

In nearly all EU states, the employment rate of nationals was higher than that for non-EU citizens, except in Cyprus (66.8 per cent for nationals compared with 74.3 per cent for non-EU citizens), the Czech Republic, Lithuania and Italy. The pattern was more varied when comparing the employment rate for nationals with that for citizens of another EU member state.

Across the 28 member states, Eurostat found that the largest differences between the employment rates of non-EU citizens and nationals were recorded in Sweden (which had 50.2 per cent for non-EU citizens compared with 81.3 per cent for nationals), followed by Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Finland and Germany.