Parties interpreting ‘20,000 jobs’ figures differently – Chamber

Sussing out the difference between jobs that are actually new and those that have simply been shuffled around can be a tough piece of work.

Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi is keen on boasting that he kept unemployment down in times of great financial duress in Malta while the rest of the eurozone crumbled, confirming how the economy and jobs remain a pivotal part of the electoral campaign narrative.

But Gonzi's claim of having 'created' 20,000 jobs since 2008, is countered by the Opposition's claim that the number is a far cry from what official figures show, with Labour leader Joseph Muscat going as far as saying that not even the pre-budget document makes any mention of the job creation figure.

The director-general of the Chamber of Commerce, Kevin J. Borg, however says the sparring between the two parties over Lawrence Gonzi's job creation figure is down to how both sides are interpreting what was actually created.

"The Chamber notes that the controversy about employment figures stems from the fact that two sides are to a certain degree interpreting the same numbers differently," Kevin J. Borg told MaltaToday.

"Government is stating that 20,000 new jobs were created during the past four years, [since] those workers who were made redundant and found a new job during this period are being classified as having found a new job.

"The Opposition, on the other hand, is giving a net balance of new jobs created, less redundancies arising over the same period."

This largely explains accusations by the Opposition that not all of the 20,000 jobs can be defined as simply 'new' jobs created in the last four years, where Malta managed to rank amongst the EU's five states with the lowest unemployment rates.

In several replies to parliamentary questions, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi revealed that of some 23,000 jobs his government 'created' in the last years, 7,971 pertained to workers made redundant and whose jobs were safeguarded.

Of the rest, 8,775 (36.6%) were part-time jobs: 5,202 providing the sole source of income, while 3,573 were secondary jobs. The remaining 7,193 were full-time jobs.

But what constitutes a new job, or what can be defined as 'job creation'? Director-general of the National Statistics Office Michael Pace Ross preferred to steer away from controversy: "The NSO will not be dragged into the 20,000 job controversy".

Labour MEP Edward Scicluna, who sought out the European Commission's view on how 'new jobs' can be measured, claimed Gonzi's oft-touted figure is a "myth".

"The inclusion of redundancies seemed to me highly questionable and bordering on the downright unacceptable," Scicluna had said, pointing to Eurostat figures that show that the number of persons employed 'for more than one hour per week' in Malta increased from 160,600 in 2007, to 170,300 in 2011 - an increase of 9,700 workers.

General Workers Union section secretary Andrew Mizzi has also claimed the figure is inflated with, amongst others, workers who had been promoted and listed as having 'found a new job'.

"It is a bubble which will soon burst, and it's doing harm than good... The 20,000 figure is not real. Following an exercise we carried out, we found out that, for example, 124 persons who were promoted were listed as 'clerk 1' and also as persons who found a new job," Mizzi told newspaper Illum in an interview.

On his part, Gonzi has dismissed the Opposition's claims as "lies", insisting his government's job creation figure enjoys the backing of the International Labour Organisation and the European Commission. During the 2008 financial crisis, Gonzi's intervention in providing aid to large manufacturing firms threatening mass redundancies was crucial in saving at least 5,000 jobs that year.

NSO director-general Michael Pace Ross insists that the national statistics are appropriately validated, but concedes that there are methodological differences between data from the Employment and Training Corporation, and the Labour Force Survey.

"The NSO regularly publishes employment and unemployment figures based on the Labour Force Survey. Administrative data passed on to us by ETC are also published after being validated. There are methodological differences [but] figures are accompanied by a commentary which is clear and concise."

Chamber of Commerce director Kevin J. Borg however pays due credit to the stewardship of the economy when it came to keeping unemployment down.

"Malta's economy appears to have done fairly well over the past years compared to our European counterparts, and this is confirmed by the unemployment figures. During the 2009 recession, the Chamber participated actively with the authorities and other stakeholders to implement and follow up initiatives aimed at safeguarding employment in Malta."