Relatively low unemployment and a growing economy are helping to make Malta a more attractive place in the search for jobs by citizens from outside the EU, although this factor is still eclipsed by illegal immigration.
Malta granted 669 – or more than 18 per cent of all its new residence permits – to non-EU citizens for employment purposes in 2009, an identical situation to 2008, according to new data published in Brussels yesterday.
The data show that on a per capita basis, in 2009 Malta was the member state granting the fourth highest number of residence permits to non-EU citizens.
In total, the island issued 3,682 new permits – nine for every 1,000 residents. The only other member states surpassing this rate were Cyprus, the UK and Sweden.
Illegal migrants who turned into asylum seekers once they reached the island’s shores were by far the main source for such a high number of permits to non-EU citizens – some 66 per cent of the total. However, employment reasons were also significant, at 18.2 per cent, followed by family reunification (10.6 per cent) and education (5.2 per cent).
A closer look at the 2009 statistics reveals some interesting trends, particularly in relation to employment.
Of the new resident permits granted, the second largest group after Somalis, which are related to irregular migration, was made up of Filipinos.
The population of Filipinos, renowned worldwide for domestic jobs, has risen rapidly in Malta in the past years particularly as home helpers or family carers with young children or the elderly. In 2009 alone, 208 new permits were granted to Filipinos to work here. Other substantial work-related permits granted to non-EU citizens were to Russians (193 permits) and Chinese (145).
Apart from non-EU workers, there are currently thousands of Europeans working on the island. Although no statistics are available as yet, it is known that the tourism, catering and construction industries are employing many EU citizens particularly from eastern European countries.
According to Eurostat, the 27 member states issued about 2.3 million new residence permits to third country nationals in 2009, a decline of about 0.2 million compared with 2008.
About 660,000 new permits, that is 28.2 per cent of the EU total, were granted for reasons related to family, 646,000 (27.6 per cent) for employment, and 510,000 (21.8 per cent) for education purposes.
The EU member state that granted the largest number of permits was the UK (671,000) followed by Italy (507,000), Spain (291,000) and France (193,000).
The groups of third country nationals who received the highest number of authorisations to reside in member states were Indians (191,000), followed by Americans (175,000), Chinese (171,000) and Moroccans (158,000).