Imported cheap labour dominating job market as 77% earn under €20,000 a year

As Malta continues to see unprecedented and unrestrained population growth, new figures published in Parliament indicate the island’s economy is becoming increasingly reliant on imported cheap foreign labour.

Preliminary figures given out by Finance Minister Clyde Caruana this week show that most non-EU workers brought to Malta – mostly by employment agencies – are being paid rock-bottom wages, which, compared to the rapidly-increasing cost of living, is putting them increasingly at risk of poverty.

Out of the almost 38,000 non-EU workers who declared they were working in Malta at the end of 2021, no less than 77% of them were earning under €20,000 a year.

Worse still, almost 11,000 of these workers – mostly Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Nepalese – are earning under €192 for a 40-hour week.

Most such workers’ mission in Malta is to sustain their families back home, where they send part of their income every month.

Interestingly, the statistics provided by Minister Caruana to Opposition MP Ivan Castillo do not match up with another set of Caruana’s statistics that refer to the same period.

Asked by Bartolo to give details on the sectors in which such third-country nationals were working, Caruana explained that by the end of 2021 there were 43,525 non-EU workers in Malta – a discrepancy of over 5,800 compared with the information he presented earlier to Parliament.

According to the same statistics, in just six months up to June 2022, the number of non-EU workers had increased by another 7,000, and the total had reached nearly 51,000 by June 2022.

As is already well known to various employers, the bulk of imported cheap labour is being directed toward essential and mostly unskilled work.

According to Caruana’s figures, by the end of 2021, the largest group of third-country nationals were employed in administrative and support service activities (6,395), construction (6,114) and accommodation and food services (5,958).

It is an open secret that, apart from tens of thousands of EU workers in mostly better-paid jobs, there are thousands more third-country nationals working illegally and being exploited by their employers.

Employers and their representatives complain of not finding enough workers – especially in low-skilled areas – because most Maltese are no longer willing to accept low salaries for hard work, or they are being scooped up by the public service with the prospect of more comfortable jobs.