Labour MEP says Brussels disputes Gonzi's job creation figure

Labour MEP Edward Scicluna has issued a scathing judgement on government's job creation claims, saying the European Commission's statistics arm Eurostat does not collect data on 'new jobs' because it is not a "measurable statistic".

Scicluna said the Commission was responding to a series of parliamentary questions he tabled on whether Eurostat collected data to assess numbers of new jobs.

In its reply, the Commission stated that: "the Commission (Eurostat) and National Statistical Institutes collect and publish harmonised quarterly and annual statistics on the number of persons employed. Persons employed and jobs do not have 1-to-1 relation and an employed person may have more than one job."

In a statement, Scicluna said that he was prompted to ask these questions because of the "surprisingly unorthodox formula presented as to how 'new jobs' were calculated for the Prime Minister. The inclusion of redundancies seemed to me highly questionable and bordering on the downright unacceptable. But I wanted the confirmation of the Commission on this."

"The Prime Minister's much touted claim to have created 20,000 new jobs figure is nothing more than a myth," Scicluna said.

Last month, Prime Minister Gonzi told Parliament that the government had created nearly 24,000 new jobs since the start of 2008. According to the EU's statistical agency Eurostat, the number of persons employed in Malta for more than one hour per week, has increased from 160,600 at the end of 2007 to 170,300 in 2011, an increase of 9,700 persons.

"It is very amateurish and irresponsible for an official or advisor to pass on data to the Prime Minister based on such spurious estimations, especially when more officially reliable data from Eurostat is available," Scicluna said. "But I suppose Eurostat's data is not there to serve the government's agenda."

Gonzi told parliament that over 20% of the 20,000 jobs created over the past four years, are part-time jobs which provide the sole source of income for workers. In several replies to parliamentary questions, the prime minister - who puts much store in the boast of having created 23,939 jobs amid trying economic conditions - revealed that 8,775 (36.6%) were part-time jobs: 5,202 providing the sole source of income, while 3,573 are secondary jobs.

The rest of the figure is made up of 7,193 full-time jobs and 7,971 jobs for formerly redundant workers.