This week's contribution is prompted by two occurrences. The fact that they both happened last week is probably a pure coincidence.

The Catholic Church celebrated last Sunday emigrants' day, while the newspaper The Economist published a lead article and a special report on global migration in its January 5-11 issue.

The issue of immigration is becoming an important one in this country; probably because of the absence of any other major issue and because some feel that they may score political brownie points from it.

When I was still a child, immigration was not an issue at all, but emigration was, as there were thousands of Maltese and Gozitans who went mainly to Australia, Canada, the US and the UK in the 1960s to earn their living there.

In effect the emigration drive was encouraged by government in an effort to ease the unemployment problem and had already achieved significant levels in the years just after World War II and the 1950s.

In economic terms, the benefit that Malta had from this emigration drive was not only an easing of the unemployment problem, but also the cash injected into the economy from the remittances that the emigrants used to send back to their families still in Malta.

Perhaps it is also a sign of the times of our country that today we have a reversal of roles, in that people from countries that are not as economically developed as ours are seeking to come to Malta, while emigration from Malta has dwindled to practically nothing. The question I would like to pose is whether immigration represents a threat to our economy or not.

It is a pertinent question because there are those who claim that immigrants are taking up the jobs which could have been done by Maltese and that immigrants represent a threat to our security, thereby impacting negatively in an indirect manner on the economy.

I strongly believe that this is all scaremongering, based more on negative emotions than on positive rational thinking. Admittedly one does need to appreciate that the number of immigrants that we have had is not insignificant compared to the size of our country and population. However, there is nothing to prove that the crime rate in Malta has increased due to the immigrants. There could be problems for these immigrants to integrate within our society, and we should have the courage to acknowledge these problems, but to claim that immigrants pose a threat to our security is a falsehood.

Do immigrants take up the jobs of the Maltese? One certainly notes a number of dark skinned persons or persons with a distinct Slavic accent working on construction sites, in restaurants, picking up rubbish, or doing other unskilled jobs, as well as in IT jobs. However, we are talking of young people, very eager to work hard and to make a fresh start to their life. Thus, we are talking of persons who are productive and not being parasitical. The experience of most employers is that they cannot find enough Maltese to do some of these jobs. It is certainly not correct that immigrants are taking up jobs that would have otherwise been done by Maltese.

Thanks to these immigrants, we have been able to increase the size of our work force and therefore increase the productivity of our economy. In any case, even if unskilled Maltese workers have their jobs at risk because of the availability of immigrant labour, the answer should surely be to retrain these Maltese workers to do higher value added jobs.

Moreover, such unskilled labour is also at risk because of new technologies and imports from countries where costs are lower. Immigrant labour is not a real threat, but a support to Maltese labour.

Immigrants represent yet another new feature on our economic landscape. Such people are being offered an opportunity to lead a better life in our country, while contributing to our gross domestic product. It is correct not to sweep any potential problems under the carpet, but all this talk about security and loss of jobs is nothing but scaremongering.