If you work for a small-sized firm with fewer than 49 employees, the chances are that you will not receive vocational training throughout the year, a new study published by the National Statistics Office suggests. 

The study found that roughly two out of every three local companies offered staff continuous vocational training in 2016. Of those that did not, many were small-sized enterprises, with nearly two-thirds of all small firms skipping CVT courses. 

Of the 739 companies which did not provide CVT, 76.5 per cent said that they did not see the need to, with workers already having all the skills and training needed to carry out their jobs. 

While the majority of local companies offer some form of CVT, not all workers are benefiting. The NSO study found that 38,998 workers, or roughly one in every three, underwent at least one CVT course in 2016. 

Read: Maltese students far behind in vocational training

The study found that companies offering CVT dedicated just shy of one per cent of paid working time to employees receiving training, and spent an average of €636 per participant on courses. When indirect costs are factored in, that figure rises to €1,158 per participant. 

In total, CVT courses cost local companies around €24.8 million, with an additional €20 million in personal access costs.

Just five per cent of enterprises said they had benefited from EU subsidies to support CVT courses for their employees. 

The NSO study surveyed 1,926 companies employing a total of 108,928 workers in various industrial sectors. 

It found that the vast majority of local firms prefer to hire staff who already have the skills needed to address future challenges. Others opted for internal reorganisation or a combination of recruiting new staff and training. Offering existing employees CVT was the least preferred method of addressing future challenges.   

 

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