The National Statistics Office recently published the results of the latest labour force survey. This was conducted in March 2003. Last week's contribution had already highlighted the performance of the manufacturing sector in the first three months this year. This essentially showed an improved performance in terms of sales and exports.
However, employment in this sector has gone down when compared to the previous year. Overall, the result of the labour force survey show that the number of persons claiming to be employed rose by nearly 5,000 to 148,798 between March 2002 and March this year.
The activity rate of the Maltese population rose to 58.6 per cent and the employment rate rose to 54.7 per cent. This positive development in employment has occurred across both genders, which is in itself significant considering that females were taking over the bulk of the new jobs that were being created over the last years. It has also occurred across all age groups, with the exception of one; males aged 35 to 44 years.
Looking at the economic sectors in detail, one does note a drop in the manufacturing industry, confirming the data previously published. However, one equally notes decreases in employment in sectors like the provision of energy, water and gas and the health and social work sector, while there were increases in employment in the transport sector, the hotels and restaurants sector, the wholesale and the distributive trades sector, the construction sector and the education sector.
This clearly indicates the continued evolution of the Maltese labour market, an evolution that is expected to continue in the coming years. The number of self-employed went up over the 12 months leading to March 2003 from 19,300 to 20,600.
One new piece of data that the NSO included in this latest edition of the labour force survey is the number of full-time persons working on reduced hours. These were included in previous surveys but were aggregated together with either the part-time employees or with the full-timers.
Excluding these persons, the number of persons in part-time employment increased by 530 over the 12-month period leading to March this year while the number of persons in full-time employment increased by 800 during this same period. This should be viewed as a notable performance considering the high level of political uncertainty that we had in view of the EU referendum and the general election.
The NSO also provided data about the average age of employed persons by gender. The mean age of males in full-time employment was of 39 while the mean age of females in full-time employment was of 33. This indicates the trend that females tend to stop working at a certain stage probably due to maternity.
Some would rejoin the labour force later and some do not. Moreover, the trend of women continuing working even after maternity or of rejoining the labour market after maternity is a relatively recent phenomenon. This pushes downwards the mean age of female employees in full-time employment, which is likely to rise in future years.
The trend is the opposite with regard to part-time employment where the mean age of males is 33 and the mean age of females is 37. The lower mean age of males indicates that the part-time job is very often related to economic needs.
On the other hand, the higher mean age of females would suggest that females, on rejoining the labour market, would opt for part-time employment.
One could have thought that most of the new jobs were generated by the public sector. The indications from the labour force survey are the opposite. What is referred to as the public service, that is government departments and ministries, generated a net increase nearly 2,000 jobs while the private sector generated a net increase of 4,600 new jobs.
The rest of the public sector that is independent statutory bodies and government controlled companies lost 1,600 jobs. Some of these lost jobs may have been due to the early retirement, while there must also have been some reclassification of entities.
However, the results are fairly clear in that a substantial part of job creation happened in the private sector. It needs to be stated that even this is part of the continued evolution in the labour market.
In terms of the type of occupation undertaken, one notes an evolutionary process also here. There are categories of occupations that require a lower level of skills than others.
It has long been stated that there would be less jobs in future in such occupations. This is starting to become evident. The number of service workers, machine operators and persons working in elementary trades, which together make up some 40 per cent of all persons in employment, increased by just 300 in the 12 months leading to March this year.
The number of clerks has gone down as well. However, the number of persons classified as senior officials and managers, technicians and associated professionals and craft and related trades workers increased by 4,300 during the same period.
A final note is on the average wages and salaries earned. The average total earning increased only marginally over the 12-month period leading to March 2003. In fact, the increase was of just 0.2 per cent.
However within this average figure, there are a number of interesting trends. The average earnings of males actually went down, even if by just Lm17 over Lm5,299 during this period, while the average earnings of females increased by one per cent. Some categories of employees experienced a drop in salaries, albeit minimal, while others did experience an increase. The largest increase occurred in the category of senior officials and managers.
This latest edition of the labour force survey does indicate that evolution in the labour market that started a number of years ago is continuing; and in certain sectors it is continuing at a faster pace. From an economic point of view there is agreement that this change is necessary.
However, one cannot ignore the social impact of this change and the social partners (because they are social partners) have a duty to assess this social impact and to take steps to minimise its negative consequences.