Malta Chamber & MCAST join forces to promote local furniture production, address shortage of workers

The Malta Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry joined forces with MCAST to promote carpentry and joinery programmes as the sector faces a shortage of skilled workers.

During a meeting at MCAST, Marisa Xuereb, President of The Malta Chamber and Mario Cardona, MCAST Deputy Principal for Technology and Applied Sciences agreed to collaborate in a structured way to give the sector the attractiveness it needs towards the new generations, help rejuvenate it and keep it highly competitive.

A delegation from The Malta Chamber explained how the furniture sector in Malta is facing enormous competition from countries having low production costs. “The reliance on innovation, authentic tradesmanship and design as a competitive advantage of the Maltese furniture sector, makes it more vulnerable,” said Ms Xuereb while highlighting the many misconceptions of working in such a dynamic industry of opportunities.

“In the provision of its academic and training programmes, MCAST aims to be always relevant and responsive to industry’s needs,” said Dr Cardona.

At the urging of three main furniture makers and joiners in Malta, namely Domestica, Saw and Trends, the management of the Institute of Engineering and Transport at MCAST visited their shopfloor to better understand the new realities in the sector driven by technological advances and coordinate more frequent visits by both lecturers and students.

The Malta Chamber and MCAST said that this is a tangible example of how the industry and education institutions can work together to address practical and urgent problems faced by businesses while creating opportunities for students to be involved actively in the industry and academics to keep abreast with industry developments.