Finance Minister accuses Opposition of 'muddling' employment statistics

Finance Minister Edward Scicluna has hit out at the Opposition’s claims that the government is trying to hide the amount of people it employs.

“The Opposition is attempting to muddle official statistics for political mileage,” Scicluna said.

Scicluna referred to the NSO’s press release on gainfully-occupied population for April 2014, published on 11 September.

“On the first page under the 'Registered Full-Time Employment' heading, the first sentence of the paragraph reads as follows:

“In the month under review, Public Administration and Defence, Compulsory Social Security; and Administrative and Support Services Activities contributed mostly to the increase in employment.”

“In April 2014, the three sectors that registered the highest employment increases actually fell within the private sector,” Scicluna said. “According to the reported data, the main contributors to the increase in employment were private sector administrative and support services activities with an increase of 736 employees, followed by private sector professional, scientific and technical activities with an increase of 617 employees and private sector wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles with an increase of 606 employees.”

The NSO’s press release also states that: “These increases were partly offset by drops in the Construction sector”.

“Reported data actually shows that during the year private sector construction increased by 189 employees while public sector construction decreased by 182 employees, resulting in a net increase of seven employees,” Scicluna said.

“The Public Administration and Defence, Compulsory Social Security sector does not feature among the top three contributing sectors to employment generation, despite the Opposition’s attempts to suggest otherwise,” Scicluna added.

Shadow finance minister Tonio Fenech on Tuesday accused the government of ‘deceiving the public’ with claims that the spike in public employment was related to the reclassification of workers.

“National statistics are clear in that the increase of 2,100 workers between March 2013 and April 2014 excludes the reclassification,” Fenech said.

The PN noted that while an average of 1,500 civil servants retire every year, the Labour government employed 3,600 people.

“The slightly fewer than 3,000 public sector employees previously employed by the Ministry for Resources and Rural Affairs were re-classified to the Public Administration and Defence, Compulsory Social Security sector,” Scicluna said.

“These people were, and have remained, public sector employees. Therefore, they cannot constitute an increase in public sector employment, as is being tenaciously implied by the Opposition.”

“Moreover, the wholesale and retail sector is confirmed as the third-largest growing sector in the economy in terms of employment generation, with an increase of 606 employees,” Scicluna said. “This further exposes the invalidity of the Opposition’s claims that the local retail sector is currently experiencing some sort of downturn.”