The Malta Chamber launches its recommendations on the National Workforce Strategy

“The immediate human capital challenges for the country’s business community are the staff shortages and difficulties in bringing in and retaining foreign workers, as well as the increase in public sector employment figures. This has resulted in increased competition for employees in a very tight labour market” says Ms Marisa Xuereb, President of The Malta Chamber.

The Malta Chamber, in collaboration with RSM Malta, presented its recommendations on the National Workforce Strategy during a press conference which was attended by the Honourable Minister Clyde Caruana and Opposition Spokesperson Hon. Dr Jason Azzopardi, among others.

The central theme to the recommendations is to nurture, attract, retain and upskill talent so as to boost productivity and increase the added value provided by the workforce. The document identifies the four key workforce challenges experienced by the industry, namely:

1. Encouraging active labour market participation by increasing the female participation rate, promoting active ageing and focusing on early school leavers;
2. Tackling skills gaps and mismatches to address systemic gaps and incentivising upskilling and reskilling;
3. Attracting and retaining local and foreign talent to fill the gaps within the Maltese labour market;
4. Improving productivity and workers’ added value and addressing under-employment in certain sectors.

These challenges and the proposed recommendations were drafted to address deficiencies in the short and medium term. In total, 56 tangible recommendations were proposed, paired with 48 quantifiable success measures.

In her concluding remarks, Dr Marthese Portelli, CEO of The Malta Chamber, said, “The Malta Chamber believes that it has proposed tangible proposals and it expects the policy makers to review the recommendations in detail and come back with an action plan. The Malta Chamber will offer its assistance for the successful implementation of this plan, in order to make our country more competitive and build an economy which is more sustainable and people centred.”

Download the full document here.