The Nationalist party warned today that excess employment in the civil service may lead to a freeze of salaries.

Shadow finance minister Mario de Marco said that while the government boasted of a drop in unemployment, official figures showed that unemployment was down because of the thousands engaged by the government itself.

The International Monetary Fund had noted the increase and urged the government to freeze salaries in talks on a new collective agreement for the civil service.

Dr de Marco said unemployment figures were also down because the government had struck off 1,000 from the unemployment register, even though they had not found jobs, or because they were participating in some scheme.

Furthermore the average wage had gone down in the past two years and people were getting increasingly concerned.

ONLY FREEZE IS IN OPPOSITION'S NEGATIVITY - PL

In a reply, the Labour Party said that the only freeze in the country was the unlimited negativity of Opposition leader Simon Busuttil.

It said that official figures showed that eight out of every 10 new jobs created were in the private sector and that dependence on the public sector dropped from 26.7 per cent at the end of the previous administration to 25.8 per cent now.

Moreover, the latest Labour Force Survey showed that wages last year had gone up by 3.3 per cent, nearly €550 a year when inflation was just 0.9 per cent. This meant a 2.4 per cent improvement in the value of wages.