The Labour Party has promised to extend childcare facilities, but insisted that offering free childcare to everyone, as the Nationalists were promising, would be counter-productive.

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and Education Minister Evarist Bartolo told a press conference that childcare services would be extended and some childcare centres would also be open at night to help parents who work on night shifts.

The free childcare scheme would be improved although its purpose will remain that of encouraging women to go out to work, the Prime Minister said.

WATCH: ‘Free childcare for all would create poverty trap’

The tax exemption for those who send their children to private childcare centres will rise to €4,000.

The tax deduction to employers who offer childcare facilities will rise to €50,000.

Improvements will be made so that parents would not be penalised when their children cannot be sent to their childcare centres because of illness.

Employers who invest in facilities for teleworking will be offered a €30,000 tax rebate on their capital expenditure

Free childcare will be extended to parents who study full time and families who have a terminally-ill member.

Employers who invest in facilities for teleworking will be offered a €30,000 tax rebate on their capital expenditure. 

Maternity and paternity leave would be reviewed and considered as family leave from which both mothers and fathers would benefit. Parents could decide how to split their leave and when to take it.

Parents would also be able to use their sick leave when their children are sick. Leave would also be given for those on IVF treatment, the prime minister said.

Earlier, Mr Bartolo highlighted how job creation in the past four years was among the highest ever and the gainfully occupied population was now the biggest ever.

Malta, he said, also had the highest rate of employment of university graduates in the EU. Unemployment was in constant decline and had now reached 2,600 from some 7,000 four years ago.

He said there had also been a dramatic improvement in the employment of persons with disabilities.

Dr Muscat said working conditions had improved under his administration and there had been a concerted effort to clamp down on precarious work.

Malta, he said, how had the lowest ever unemployment rate even though the labour force had grown.

“Labour is working,” he said.

A new government, he said, would continue to improve working conditions. He promised equal work for equal pay.