Quarter of Maltese companies employ non-EU workers

A quarter of Maltese businesses employ workers from outside the EU, a recent Eurobarometer survey on skills shortages and recruitment in small and medium-sized enterprises shows.

The findings place Maltese companies as the third most likely in the EU to hire non-EU workers.

The survey among 252 Maltese SMEs highlighted various employment patterns among these businesses. Specifically, 16% of Maltese companies exclusively employ non-EU workers in person, while 3% rely solely on remote workers from outside the EU.

Additionally, 6% of Maltese SMEs hire both in-person and online non-EU workers.

The survey which encompassed 12,909 SMEs across all EU member states found that 14% of EU-based SMEs employ foreign workers from outside the EU. The proportion of companies engaging non-EU workers varies significantly, from 30% in Portugal and 28% in Ireland to as low as 3% in Bulgaria and 2% in Hungary.

A striking 87% of Maltese companies reported experiencing skills shortages, where applicants either lacked the required skills or there were too few/no applicants for specific job roles, including managers, administrators, skilled workers, and manual laborers. Notably, 50% of Maltese companies struggled to recruit professionals and technicians, while 41% faced challenges in hiring manual laborers and administrators.

The difficulty in recruiting skilled workers was not unique to Malta, as the survey indicated that it ranged from 54% in Cyprus and 56% in Sweden and Denmark, to 88% in Austria.

When confronted with skills shortages, 47% of Maltese respondents expressed their willingness to invest more in training. This approach was also favoured by over 40% of respondents in the Netherlands (44%), Italy (47%), and Ireland (49%).

Conversely, only 22% of respondents in Denmark leaned toward investing more in training.

Interestingly, 21% of Maltese companies, in contrast to 32% of companies based in other EU countries, considered increasing financial benefits to attract more workers. Furthermore, 26% of Maltese businesses would explore automation, while 14% would consider lowering their hiring standards to address recruitment challenges.

44% of Maltese businesses believed that simplifying procedures for hiring non-EU workers could aid in recruiting staff with the necessary skills. This sentiment was echoed by 38% of SMEs across all EU member states. A majority of respondents, 59%, believed that improved collaboration with public employment services represented the most effective measure to tackle skill shortages.