I refer to the opinion piece under the heading ‘Growth driven by foreign workers’ by Joseph Zahra (November 8).
Without entering into the merits of other arguments he makes, I would like to point out that his statement is factually and economically incorrect. And so are all those who are making the argument that our recent economic growth would not have occurred without foreign workers.
Economic growth has both a demographic content and an economic content. While there is no doubt that the demographic element (including an increase in foreign workers) played a role, the major contributor to GDP growth in recent years has been economic growth.
The table below shows the contribution of each component, from which it is absolutely clear that the main contributor, by far, was economic growth.
1987-2013 | 2012-2017 | |
Population growth | + 0.7% | + 2.0% |
GDP/capita growth | + 3.7% | + 7.1% |
Economic growth | + 4.4% | + 9.1% |