Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1515420
4 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 4 FEBRUARY 2024 NEWS MATTHEW VELLA mvella@mediatoday.com.mt Jobs for foreigners largely concentrated in same five sectors for past decade Letter of Intention The director of Europe Recruitment Limited, Gobinda Kharel, hereby declares her intention for the company to register for an Employment Agency licence in accordance with article 23 of the Employment and Training Services Act, 1990 } Act XXVIII of 1990}. The activities proposed to be carried out are the following: 1. Recruitment Consultancy; 2. Interviewing, selection and placements of candidates in employment; 3. Recruitment of persons from abroad to employment in Malta or in an EU member state; 4. Recruitment of persons in Malta for employment in Malta or in an EU member state; 5. Advertising of the filling of vacancies & 6. Keeping a register of applicants for employment Gobinda Kharel director for and on behalf of Europe Recruitment Limited C 89241 Registered address: B5's Business Centre, Level 1, Triq il-Burdnara, Qormi, QRM 3350, Malta Address: Europe Recruitment Limited B5's Business Centre, Level 1, Triq il-Burdnara, Qormi, QRM 3350, Malta MALTA'S Roberta Metsola has enjoyed wide mass appeal and cross-party support in her elec- tion as President of the Europe- an Parliament, and the rumour mill has been in overdrive about what her next plans are. Early on it was a nod from EPP leader Manfred Weber as suit- able 'spitzenkandidat' material for the European centre-right, which often carries expectations that the winning lead candidate in a European election gets to be picked president of the Europe- an Commission. Her options to return to Malta as leader of the Nationalist Party remain wide open, if only spoken about on very speculative terms. As the June elections for the European Parliament beckon, it appears Metsola is partial to stay on as president of the insti- tution – at least, in her answer to a question from a journalist at the special EU summit last week, she was not inclined to say anything categorical about her plans. So, does she want to stay on as President of the EP, asked AFP's Europe reporter Christian Spill- man earlier this week? Her answer: "I don't like to talk about myself..." Metsola instead said she was intent on focusing on bringing out the vote across the EU's member states with trips to each country, where she is meeting not just national authorities but also young people. "We're very proud of the dem- ocratic process in our member states... and the big challenge we have is encouraging people to vote," she told the press. "If you see the situation today with farmers, this is a major re- sponsibility we have as well. We need to talk with all sectors and the people who want us to solve their problems. And that's what I'm going to focus on the next five months." The future power line-up in Brussels is typically shared be- tween the major political blocs: Politico believes Ursula von der Leyen too will stay as Commis- sion chief, while Mette Frederiksen, the current prime minister of Denmark, takes over as president of the Eu- ropean Council, and Kaja Kallas, the Estonian PM, becomes the EU's foreign policy chief. In this apportionment of the leadership cake, the Commission and the Parliament would remain in the hands of the European People's Party – the latter for at least the first two-and-a-half years of the mandate – when the EPP could pass the presidency to another party; the socialists would get the European Council, and the liberals would run the External Action Service, the EU's diplo- matic arm. Does Metsola plan to stay on as EP president? A journalist asked her... Roberta Metsola CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 According to information tabled in parliament by Finance Minister Clyde Caruana, 15.6% of foreign workers as of August last year were em- ployed in administrative and support services. He was replying to a parliamentary question by Nationalist MP Bernice Bonello. There were 107,406 foreigners working in Malta with 16,792 employed in administrative services. The second largest cohort numbering 15,200, or 14.2% of all foreign workers, was employed in accommodation and food service activities that include hotels and restaurants. The figures show that almost 60% of foreign workers had jobs in just five employment cate- gories last August. Each of these five categories have remained largely unchanged as the top five job sectors that employed foreigners since 2011. What has changed is the ranking of each of these five cat- egories over the years. Whereas 12 years ago, the largest cohort of foreign workers (2,148) were employed in ho- tels and restaurants, followed by the arts, en- tertainment and recreation sector (1,667) and administrative and support services (1,478); in 2023, the largest cohort was in administration services (16,792) followed by hotels and restau- rants (15,200) and construction (10,581). Of significance is that the construction sector was part of the top five job categories until 2013 and then dropped out as other sectors started attracting more foreigners. However, by 2019, construction reappeared among the top five sectors as the sector boomed. Retail entered the top five slots in 2012 and kept growing ever since, while the manufactur- ing sector slipped out of the top five in 2013. The overall picture shows that in 2011 there were 12,338 foreigners working in Malta, a fig- ure that shot up to more than 100,000 within a 12-year span. The number of foreign workers has increased on a yearly basis since 2011 but accelerated at a higher speed after 2016, with a slowdown dur- ing the pandemic. In 2022, numbers were again on a steep incline with foreign workers increasing by more than 20,000 in just one year. Between August 2023 and the end of 2022, an eight-month interlude, statistics show that 10,436 more foreign workers were employed in Malta. Top five employment sectors for foreigners 2011 1. Accommodation and food services activities (2,148) 2. Arts, entertainment and recreation (1,667) 3. Administrative and support service activi- ties (1,478) 4. Construction (1,047) 5. Manufacturing (1,015) 2016 1. Accommodation and food services activities (5,566) 2. Administrative and support service activi- ties (5,189) 3. Arts, entertainment and recreation (4,967) 4. Professional, scientific and technical ac- tivties (3,526) 5. Wholesale and retail trade, repair of motor vehicles (2,868) 2023 (up to August) 1. Accommodation and food services activities (15,200) 2. Administrative and support service activi- ties (16,792) 3. Construction (10,581) 4. Wholesale and retail trade, repair of motor vehicles (10,366) 5. Arts, entertainment and recreation (8,885)