People on benefits are not necessarily visiting the Employment Training Centre to search for work. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

Malta’s unemployed are generally satisfied with their lifestyle and are not necessarily actively looking for a job even if given additional incentives, new EU-wide research shows. Conducted by the University of Edinburgh, the research challenges the traditional theory that high unemployment benefits discourage people from working.

On the contrary, the research found that the two things are unrelated as the well-being of jobless people is not affected by the level of benefit they receive.

According to the research, while Malta is considered as a country which pays mid-range benefits to its unemployed when compared with the rest of the EU, its jobless are among the most satisfied with their lifestyle in the bloc.

On the other hand, Luxembourg and Finland are the most generous in social benefits yet have the highest levels of dissatisfaction in people without jobs.

According to Jan Eichjorn, of the university’s School of Social and Political Science, the research shows that benefits and motivation are not neces-sarily related.

“Those who claim that greater unemployment benefits lead to less motivation for people to seek employment should think again as for most people, it is not the degree of State provisions that determines how they personally feel about the experience of being unemployed.”

“Unemployment does not just result in a loss of income but also a change in social position – that is perceived differently in different societies,” he said. The research shows that cultural and demographic factors have a greater effect on the life-satisfaction levels of the unemployed.

Being jobless in a country with a proportionally older population and fewer people of working age had a greater negative impact on personal well-being than benefit levels.

So too did high levels of inflation and income inequality.

Those who claim that greater unemployment benefits lead to less motivation for people to seek employment should think again

Being unemployed in Germany hurts an individual’s well-being significantly more than elsewhere in Europe, according to the report. On the other hand, in Romania and Poland, which pay very low benefits, unemployment dissatisfaction with life is very low. During the last Budget, the Government announced a raft of incentives aimed at pushing thelong-term unemployed into employment. These include incentives to keep part of their unem-ployment benefits during their first three years of employment.

However, it is not yet known whether these incentives will bear any fruit.

There is universal unofficial agreement in Malta that most of those registering for work still perform some sort of job in the black economy.