Part of the electoral debate will be on the creation of job opportunities. It cannot be otherwise. Unemployment, as measured by the total people registering for a job, has been rising steadily in recent months and hovers around 7,000, the equivalent of a whole medium-sized town.

The unemployment figures, however, are telling us we are not resilient enough- Lino Spiteri

Compared to absolute and relative jobless rates within the European Union, that is not abnormally high. By any standard in Malta, it is too much. Government spokespeople resort to comparing the total number of the registered unemployed, and the percentage rate, to some benchmark lifted from the year when Labour was in office.

Trying to score points in that manner does nothing at all for those willing and able to work, but who cannot find a job. The total is not a figment of the imagination.

It is well below that suggested by the Labour Force Survey, which is much higher, and is accordingly highlighted by the Opposition. The methodology and scope of the two measures are different. There is no gainsaying, though, that a human mass of more than 8,000 people on the employment register is not something to be argued away.

One might still suggest that it includes an element of people who do not really want to work, or who are actually doing so in the underground economy. That element has been, rightly, targeted by the Government over the years. It has to be presumed that targeting was not done to idle away the time, and that weeding out did take place.

The bulk of those registering for employment, therefore, are really unemployed. Spin and comparison will not soften that unpalatable socioeconomic reality. In social terms, it is unacceptable to have any – let alone such a lot – of unemployment.

In economic terms, one tends to understand there is always an element of unemployed, particularly in the form of new entrants to the so-called labour market, and movement within it from one job to another. But one also understands that the remainder of the unemployed, less those who are unable to work, or active in the black economy, represent a hard core of concern.

In addition to the social plight of that core, it represents lost potential output of goods and services. Add that loss to the underemployment still rampant in the public sector, and to that of economic operators performing well below capacity, and the conclusion is bleak. The economy, though it has expanded in certain sectors, is not efficient enough to keep unemployment in check – that is, with as small a hard core as possible.

One has to position the domestic situation in the international context. No country – not even China, the US, Japan, or even the EU – can be an economic island. We most definitely are not. Malta depends more than practically anyplace else on exports of goods and services to survive. If global demand shrinks, we shrink.

If competition grows, and our relative competitiveness diminishes, in a manner that undermines our main export and import substitution activities, and we decline.

Nevertheless, the issue does not stop there. To be realistic is not the same as to be resigned. We cannot become resigned to a bad fate because of a bad international situation. Nobody, be it the Government or the Opposition, employers or the unions, is suggesting that we should be.

The unemployment figures, however, are telling us we are not resilient enough. The hard core of the registered unemployed is made up of job-seekers who have low skills.

The total of the registered unemployed is a snapshot. Successive snapshots show a picture which is becoming a template. Of even greater concern are the indicators of future trends. Our small economy will be buffeted by international developments. We shall certainly keel over if the present trend continues.

It shows that the education system is not geared to the discernible requirements of an economy that must compete in areas where it stands a chance. It is not that, as recent comparisons with the experience in the EU have yelled out, we have relatively few graduates.

It is more a question of not being literate in the right subjects, of having too few graduates in sectors that have to be professionally and efficiently staffed, if the economy is to exploit that part of global demand for which we can compete. There is a combined gap – of career guidance from very early on in a student’s life, and of education provision related to forecast needs.

It is not merely the case that not enough has been done. More galling, and constraining in economic terms, is the conclusion that we have not been doing enough of what needed to be done. The emphasis on numbers, at all levels of the education system, lost focus of the fact that education has to take into account forecast economic developments.

Trade schools and the student-worker scheme had their clear shortcomings, especially in implementation. As it has developed, the education system falls short of achieving as much relevance to the needs of the economy, as well as of the individual.

The high level and the composition of those registering for employment are a warning to plan with urgency and deep thought for tomorrow.

Otherwise, the social cost in the form of today’s hard-core unemployed will result to be only fraction of the cost that will be billed to us some more years down the road.

The electoral debate should be much more forthcoming on these factors.