Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/768342
9 maltatoday, SATURDAY, 31 DECEMBER 2016 News suring economic continuity is a foreign workforce. Workers resettling in Malta fill job vacancies and contribute through their taxes and spending. Immigration has helped accommodate a rising demand for labour in Malta, to the extent that without foreign work- ers, Malta's working age population would have declined instead of risen. Data from the national employment agency JobsPlus sug- gests that the number of full- and part-time jobs rose by 25,500 between 2010 and 2014 – nearly equally divid¬ed between Maltese and foreign workers. Until the 1980s Malta was a country of emigration, but now the odds that a third-country national is employed in an elementary occupation is 4.5 times that for the average Maltese, who instead have benefited from higher skilled jobs. Malta is now a country that employs foreign workers at ei- ther end of the labour market – the higher end where skills are scarce, and the lower end where jobs are no longer that attractive for Maltese workers. Both EU nationals and non- EU nationals are filling in these vacancies. Service jobs, sales workers and plant and machine opera- tors remain clear¬ly dominated by Maltese workers, but 50% of the growth in EU workers are managers, profession- als and technical staff. Conversely, the proportion of the for¬eign workforce en- gaged in elementary occupa¬tions and in clerical and sup- port duties rose from 7.5% in 2000 to 28.3% in 2014. These two trends, a declining share of higher-end and a rising proportion of lower-end occupations differ from those ob- served amongst Maltese workers. More impressively, dependence on foreign workers in el- ementary occupations and in clerical and support duties has risen from 0.5% to 14.1%. For¬eign workers are more likely to be employed in other services, mainly remote gaming, profes¬sional services and admin¬istrative support and in tourism. Migrant workers are ever present in various jobs, namely 'other services' (29% of workforce), 23% in professional ser- vices & administrative support, 21% in tourism, 18% in real estate, 16% in information and communication, and 13% in construction. The Central Bank is cautious about how this data, which it complied in a recent quarterly review, is read. "It is impor- tant to emphasise that the fact that a sector is heavily de- pendent on foreign workers should not be misconstrued as evidence that these have elbowed out Maltese employees." What this means was that the Maltese also were main recipients of new jobs: they occupied 50% of new full-time jobs in entertainment during the decade to 2014, and 66% of jobs in professional services. But in tourism and construction the growth in employ- ment since the 2009 financial crisis was mainly taken up by migrant workers. Non-EU nationals occupied 37% of new jobs in administrative support between 2009 and 2014, 13% of health and social care jobs, and 11% of retail jobs. Even the use of public hospitals by foreigners shows that this has risen from approximately 1,500 patients in 2008 to less than 2,300 in 2012, less than the growth in the foreign workforce during the time. But as the Central Bank continues, migrants also do not appear to be weighing down on the social benefit budget – with just 130 on unemployment benefits, for instance – this suggests that in addi¬tion to their significant con- tribution towards economic growth, foreign workers have also contributed significantly to improve the state of public finances in Malta. And tax data indicates that revenue from foreign workers in the form of income tax and national insurance had risen to 10.1% of some €984 million in 2014, a growth of nine times during the period 2000 to 2014, whereas that from Maltese workers doubled. Encouraging births Anna Borg says just replenishing ageing societies with foreign workers, although a realistic solution, is not with- out its repercussions when it could alter the make-up of native populations. "If we are talking about work, then strictly-speaking foreign workers will solve the problem, however if we want the traditional Maltese population to continue then that is a different matter," Borg said. In a 2011 study by the EU's statistical agency Eurostat, it was found that with an end to migratory flows the EU's populations would age considerably, which is why immi- gration can be seen as an option for softening the ageing process. "But as immigrants are always older than new- borns, if the population growth factor were to be immigra- tion instead of fertility, then the ageing process would be softened less than in the case of a fertility increase. This effect is diminished if the fertility of immigrants is higher than in the host population." Governments across the globe have implemented other measures in an attempt to halt declining fertility rates. In Singapore, the government pays couples a bonus of $6,000 for each of their first two children and $8,000 per child for the third and fourth; the Danish government recently launched an advertising campaign to encourage people to have children and the Russians have even experimented with sliding benches to get people closer together. Overall, the fertility rate in the EU increased from 1.46 in 2001 to 1.58 in 2014. Those European nations bucking the trend of decline include France, which has the highest fertility rate in Eu- rope, alongside Ireland. After two decades of decline in the 1970s-80s, the fertility rate started picking up again in the late 1990s. Since then the country has registered scores just short of the hallowed threshold of 2.1 children per woman. What France and equally successfully Scandinavian coun- tries are doing is focus on gender equality and government intervention. The key is distancing away from the tradition- al family model that centres on the figure of a breadwinner going out to work, and the woman staying at home as car- egiver. Family-friendly measures, parental leave, flexitime and telework, childcare support are all essential ingredients. Two main factors can explain France's exceptionally high fertility rate: a generous welfare system which gives cash al- lowances and tax breaks to families with children and a wide range of state-subsidized childcare options to help women get back to work. So does Malta employ a more favourable tax rate for par- ents, and a new free childcare system for parents who are both in gainful employment. But even in its last review in December, the World Bank (the IMF) called for further ac- tions to integrate the remaining inactive population, par- ticularly women, into the labour market. "Expanding labour activation policies, and enhancing education quality, would reduce skill mismatch in the face of the changing labour demand. Further incentivizing delayed retirement would boost labour force participation among the elderly." Whether the effects of these measures will be felt in the years to come, will be something for experts to watch out for. ypace@mediatoday.com.mt "We seem to think that free childcare solved all our problems. It's a good initiative, but children go to childcare till they're three, what happens after?" Anna Borg 2010 2012 2013 2014 France Ireland Iceland Sweden UK Norway Finland Austria Germany Malta Italy Spain Greece Portugal 2.3 2.2 2.1 2.0 1.9 1.8 1.7 1.6 1.5 1.4 1.3 Babylicious Fertility rates, 2010-2014, in Europe Employment by sector and type of nationality: Malta's workforce is diverse and it needs this diversity if it is to sustain its economy. Data: Central Bank of Malta