Last Saturday I was in Brussels for Job Day Europe, an activity organised within the ambit of the EURES Programme aimed at encouraging job mobility across borders within the European Union. Misco was one of two Maltese organisations that had an exhibition stand in this job fair. Apart from other benefits, participation in this activity gave me the opportunity to assess how Europeans look at job mobility and at the way they search for jobs.

I would like to state at the outset that this is very different to the way we Maltese view job mobility, but it may well be that our attitudes will change to become more similar to those of our fellow Europeans.

This different approach may be due to the fact that the job market in most, if not all, EU member states is more difficult than ours. It could also be due to the fact that Malta is a small island economy, and the insular mentality that we have could be hindering us from having an open-minded approach when it comes to searching for a job. In fact, one of the first things that struck me was that I met an archaeologist who wanted to become an IT consultant, a human resources professional who wanted to become a travel consultant, and a qualified engineer whose job was of a credit controller. This implies that in vocational terms, one's studies may have nothing to do with one's career. The acquisition of qualifications is not looked at from a narrow perspective, but is seen as an important method of expanding one's knowledge, skills and horizons. For them job mobility is not only a question of changing jobs within the same profession, or across borders, but also a question of mobility across different professions.

It may seem that such persons are aimless and not focused in their approach to their working life. I would like to think that these persons have less hang-ups than we do in changing career paths, as long as it would lead to more job satisfaction. Considering that some EU member states are already talking of raising the retirement age to 68, it may well be that such persons shall be working till the age of 70 and maybe even longer than that. So they are more likely to believe that it is far more important to be doing the job that gives them most satisfaction, than sticking to a career path that they may have chosen while they were still teenagers.

Another consideration worth making is that persons in their 20s are fully aware of the need they have to build up experience. This also makes them approach the labour market differently to the way we approach it. They seem to be more than happy to spend a number of years in internships to gain the required experience. In Malta when an employer is faced with a person whose CV includes a range of jobs in the initial years of his or her career, he is more than likely to not enrol that person, as changing jobs is not viewed as a means of acquiring experience but as a sign of instability.

There were other less important aspects such as the nationality of those enquiring at our stand. Mostly were Italians, Spanish, Portuguese or Eastern Europeans. The fields of activity were varied, but it seemed that jobs related to engineering, the environment, law and human resources were the ones most sought after. I was also surprised that there are still EU nationals who do not know what or where Malta is, but I further strengthened my view that being a member of the EU and adopting the euro as our currency has given our country more recognition internationally.

To state that the European job market is in a state of flux is stating the obvious. However it may be that the Maltese job market is entering into a state of flux that many of us may not yet be imagining. It is within this context that I strongly believe that all stakeholders need to do all they can to understand better developments abroad and to understand better the way the Maltese job market would be changing so that the right policy measures are taken to continue ensuring the provision of appropriate skills for our economy.