Malta’s skills gap: €3 million census to serve as basis for human capital & employment skills data

During October and November, Malta will collect data of around 520,000 people living on the island through an online survey, over the phone or via face-to-face interviews.

The planned census will also serve as a basis for a census on Malta’s human capital and employment skills, Finance Minister Clyde Caruana said on Thursday.

The first of its kind, a skills census would go a long way in addressing concerns raised by the business community regarding skills shortages on the island, especially since Malta’s economy and the high-quality jobs on offer have grown increasingly specialised. The growth of the financial services industry, insurance activities, Fintech and iGaming have created the need for highly specialised labour.

Indeed, EY’s 2020 Attractiveness Survey for Malta noted that the flipside to unprecedented economic expansion, experienced by Malta since 2014 until the pandemic hit, is that “businesses were increasingly unable to find the required specialised skills in the labour market, a fact often exhibited by the Malta Attractiveness Surveys”.

Minister Caruana said that the data from Malta’s skills census will assist Government in drawing up policy to create new jobs.

He added that such data could also help attract foreign investment.

For the main census, all those living in Malta for the past 12 months, or plan on living on the island for the next year, are obliged to fill in the survey. Assurances were given that the identity of each resident would remain protected.

More information can be found here.