• With so much emphasis on Budget measures, there are some interesting nuggets in the Economic Survey released last Monday that could easily get overlooked. Although most of the figures were already released by the National Statistics Office, the overview highlights some important trends in employment.
• Average nominal weekly gross wages and salaries per employee stood at €357.17 during the first half of 2013 compared to €349.08 in the same period of 2012. This represents an increase of 2.3 per cent. In real terms, it was up by 0.5 per cent.
• The labour force (i.e. the total number of people employed plus unemployed) stood at 189,620, an increase of 5 3.2 per cent over the end of June 2012. Total employment increased by 3 per cent to reach 176,862.
• By June 2013, the female labour force increased by 5.6 per cent to 70,785, and female employment increased by 5.7 per cent to 66,214.
• Between 2010 and 2012, the most notable improvements in employment rate were observed in the age bracket 25-54 (four percentage points), which were mainly driven by female employment (7.5 percentage points). On average, during the same period, the rate of females in employment out of the working age population increased from 47.7 per cent to 55.2 per cent.
• In the second quarter of 2013, the activity rate stood at 64.9 per cent, following an increase of 2.3 percentage points over the second quarter of 2012. The number of inactive persons decreased 1.9 per cent to 170,614, of which 74.9 per cent of the decrease was accounted for by females.
• Despite the positive development in the activity rate for Malta during the period under review, the rate is seven percentage points and 7.3 percentage points lower than the rates for the EU28 and eurozone average, respectively.
• During 2010-2012, the number of unemployed persons was relatively unchanged, hovering around 11,909 persons, with the unemployment rate decreasing from 6.9 per cent in 2010 to 6.4 per cent in 2012.
• The youth unemployment rate in August 2013 was estimated at 15.7 per cent, while the share of unemployed persons aged 49 or more increased marginally by 0.1 percentage points, to 31.6 per cent in August 2013.
• In June 2013, 35.6 per cent of the working age population aged between 55 and 64 were employed. Compared to the same period a year earlier, the rate improved by three percentage points.
• The share of persons registering for work for more than 48 weeks edged up from 42.1 per cent in August 2012 to 45.2 per cent in August 2013.
• At the end of May 2013, total part-time employment stood at 56,263, a substantial increase of 4.2 per cent over 12 months earlier. Half of these also held a full-time job.