Only 7.5 per cent of former Malta Drydocks workers are registering as unemployed just over a year after the company was privatised, according to government figures.

Around 970 workers found alternative employment or became self-employed since Italian company Palumbo took over the shipyards last year. A total of 118 of the 1,493 redundant workers were registering for work, a finance ministry spokesman said.

A substantial number of the remaining 403 former workers had reached pensionable age and the rest had probably taken up one of the government’s schemes but were not registering as unemployed, the spokesman said.

The latest figures reveal that the majority, around 528, have been employed in direct production sectors such as manufacturing, with 196 employed in the manufacture of transport equipment.

Another 446 work in the market services industry, in wholesale and retail, for example. The largest section of this group, 130, work in real estate and business activities.

The shipyards were passed on to Palumbo in June 2010 on a 30-year lease against a payment of €90 million.

In September 2008, the government had offered lump sum settlements to the shipyard’s 1,627-strong workforce at a cost of €58 million to the public coffers. Until June 2010, there were 60 workers who did not take up the voluntary redundancy scheme or the early retirement scheme offered two years earlier.

Of these, 59 had asked to be transferred to the government company Industrial Projects and Services Ltd, while one opted for an early retirement scheme.

Valhmor Barbara, 38, was one of the workers who decided to go for a government scheme after having spent almost 20 years working in the shipyards.

Starting off as an assistant tradesman, he was involved in the repair and maintenance of the plant, becoming highly specialised and skilled as time went by.

Mr Barbara said he was one of the first workers to apply for the scheme, once it had the blessing of the General Workers’ Union.

“I had continued to study over the years and I didn’t give up hope about my future,” he said.

Although he was granted money from the scheme, he agreed to stay on for another year after being asked.

However, when his time was up, Mr Barbara was left without a job.

“It was a very bad time for me. Even though I took the lump sum, I was still worried because life is very expensive and money runs out,” he said.

Married and with two young children, Mr Barbara had applied for two jobs as soon as his employment at the shipyards came to an end and, after a month that felt like an eternity, found a job with Mater Dei Hospital where he has been working for over a year.

“When I didn’t have a job I felt terrible and it was a huge burden – as though I was failing my family and that I wasn’t doing my duty. A man loses his dignity. I don’t want anyone to feel that way,” Mr Barbara said.

Although he does not regret the years he spent at the shipyards, Mr Barbara believes he took the right decision to move on.

“I learnt a lot at the shipyards – I grew up there, but I didn’t know there was a world out there. It’s like we had our own little community and when I left to work outside the shipyards, I noted the difference,” he said.