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Skills anticipation in Malta (2022 Update)
Summary
Overview of the Maltese approach
A coherent system for producing and interpreting skills intelligence has not yet been developed. The country’s small and open economy is exposed to external economic trends, requiring the workforce to be adaptable and flexible. There are a range of skills anticipation exercises but, as a whole, the skills anticipation process is fragmented with limited overall coordination. Policymakers view the lack of reliable and systematic data on future skill needs as potentially hindering future economic development. That said, a relative strength of the current skills anticipation activity is the high level of stakeholder involvement in skills anticipation. Especially employers and education and training providers are willing to cooperate with one another in trying to align the skills system with the demands of the labour market.
Recent surveys and studies, including the National Employee Survey carried out in 2017 and the development of the Employability Index (first results released in 2015) have helped expand the evidence on the match between skills supply and labour market needs. A National Skills Council with the capacity to better coordinate the national system of skills anticipation was launched in November 2016. The National Skills Council brings together representative of the University, enterprises, public and private bodies, research centres, educational experts and civil society.
Description
In Malta there are a range of activities that shed some light on issues relevant to skills anticipation. Aside from regular surveys such as the Labour Force Survey (LFS), the following exercises provide data about the supply of, and demand for, skills:
- Ad hoc skills foresight exercises – focusing on particular sectors of the economy
- Surveys among employers including the National Employee Skills Survey (by Jobsplus, Malta Enterprise and the National Commission for Further and Higher Education, NCFHE)
- Graduate tracer studies undertaken by the Malta College for Arts, Science and Technology (MCAST)/the University of Malta (UoM)/the NCFHE
- The Employability Index (2015) (by the, at the time, Ministry for Education and Employment [MEDE] and Jobsplus). MEYR has been split into the Ministry for finance and employment and the Ministry for education, sport, youth, research and innovation (MEYR).
These exercises do not, however, provide a comprehensive, integrated system of skills anticipation. Although skills anticipation falls under the responsibility of the MEYR, in practice skills anticipation activities have been spread across a range of organisations without much coordination. There have been policy proposals that have sought to coordinate skills anticipation, such as establishing a National Career Guidance Service, but these have not been taken forward.
A National Skills Council (NSC) was launched in November 2016, by the Maltese government, under the supervision the Ministry Education and Employment. Today is fully operational and it has the responsibility for identifying skills gaps in the economy and recommending remedial actions. The National Skills Council brings together representatives of the University of Malta (UoM), enterprises, public and private bodies, research centres, educational experts, and civil society. The NSC not only takes stock of existing skills needs but informs the education system on whether it is producing the skills the economy needs. It will work with a wide range of stakeholders and conduct research.
Aims
There are concerns in Malta about skills gaps and shortages in the economy. To date, relatively little attention has been paid to the information needs of: (a) jobseekers; and (b) young people faced with deciding about which courses to choose. (An exception to this is the Employability Index, which is targeted at prospective students and their parents.) The role of skills intelligence as a tool for better aligning the outcomes of the education and training system with the needs of the labour market is widely acknowledged. This underlies the establishment of the NSC, which mainly aims at minimising existing skill gaps in key sectors such as the digital, technical and financial sectors, where Malta has a degree of competitive advantage. It is the council’s task to recommend policy changes to the government that would reduce skill gaps and prepare the labour force with the right skills to meet future challenges.
Legal framework
There are several regulations that are pertinent to skills anticipation. These include:
- The Employment and Training Services Act (1990 and subsequent amendments, with the latest in 2016) which regulates the activities of Jobsplus (the public employment service, PES).
- Legal Notice 19 of 2015 which regulates the processing of student data; these data have become an important source of information feeding into the Employability Index.
- Legal Notice 278 of 2016 which establishes the NSC and its functions (e.g. to propose and plan strategies and training to reduce shortages in labour skills, improve skills and meet market demands). The NSC review the country’s skill needs and evaluate the changes required to meet both current and future needs.
National strategic documents that call for action in relation to skills anticipation include:
- Malta’s National Reform Programme, which states that addressing skills gaps is a priority for government.[i]
- The Framework for the Education Strategy for Malta 2014–2024, which suggests a variety of policy measures to bring education and training closer to the needs of the labour market.
- The Higher Education Strategy for Malta, which calls for research on skills needs to help higher education institutions adapt their courses to the labour market.[ii]
- The National Vocational Education and Training Policy which, among other priorities, calls for a skills intelligence system incorporating a national tracer study and longitudinal skills gap analysis.
The Malta National Lifelong Learning Strategy 2020 which calls for lifelong learning to be better aligned with skills demand.[iii]
Governance
The main organisation responsible for skills anticipation and related activities is the MEYR. MEYR has responsibility for Jobsplus (Maltese Public Employment Service), NCFHE, UoM and MCAST. The Institute of Tourism Studies (ITS), which has a responsibility for identifying skill needs in tourism and hospitality, falls under the responsibility of the Ministry for Tourism. When fully operational, the NSC will have overall responsibility for identifying the country’s skills needs and recommending policies and measures to address them.
The role of stakeholders
Employers’ organisations, higher education and vocational education and training (VET) providers, social partners, Jobsplus and policymakers are all involved in the skills anticipation process. However, there is no central body bringing together the results of the anticipation activities, and as such there is relatively limited coordination of the range of skills anticipation activities taking place. The NSC is designed to fulfil the coordinating role by bringing all stakeholders to the discussion table to facilitate a more coherent and structured approach to stakeholder consultation on skills anticipation. Stakeholders represented in the NSC will include UoM, MCAST, Jobsplus, ITS, the Malta Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry, and Malta Enterprise.
An important platform for stakeholder dialogue is the Malta Council for Economic and Social Development (MCESD), which involves social partners (government, business and trade unions) in dialogue about the needs of the country and how to collaborate on successful policy initiatives. MCESD also has the remit to commission studies dealing with economic and social development.
Jobsplus and the MCAST have good relationships with the business community, and regularly meet employers to discuss how training offered by the two organisations can increase the skills levels of existing and future employees. Several sector-based organisations are also interested in pushing forward the skills agenda with regard to their sectors, such as BICC (construction), the Malta Financial Services Authority (finance) and ESkills Malta Foundation (ICT). In 2018, the eSkills Malta Foundation embarked on the formulation of a concrete National eSkills Strategy through a service contract with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). The eSkills Malta Strategy 2019 -2021 complements the 2014 Digital Malta Strategy. This strategy complements initiatives at both local and EU level to address the need for existing and new digital skills that will be required for nearly all jobs over the medium term. Despite general positive developments in the digital literacy, the need for a continued effort to narrow the digital gap further is a key goal for the Malta eSkills Foundation.
Target groups
The intelligence produced with skills anticipation activities aimed at a wide variety of users: policymakers, education and training providers, labour market intermediaries, employers, jobseekers, young people making decisions about what to study, and graduates from secondary and tertiary education regarding their career options. As noted above, until recently there has been less emphasis on jobseekers and young people.
Funding and resources
Funding of skills anticipation activity is spread across a number of government departments and agencies depending upon the exercise being undertaken. The European Social Fund (ESF) has been a source of funding for some activities (e.g. the project ‘Linking Industrial Needs and VET to Optimise Human Capital’, run by MCAST, ITS and the Malta Qualifications Council.[iv]Before the establishment of the NSC, there was no clearly defined budget dedicated to skills anticipation.
Methods and tools
Skills anticipation has been fragmented and underdeveloped, but with the NSC the first steps towards a more structured and coordinated system have been taken. Alongside the NSC, surveys and studies, such as the Employability Index (2015) and the National Employee Skills Survey (2016) have contributed to making skills challenges more transparent and have already filled information gaps.
Skills assessment
MCAST, Malta’s main VET institution, has an outreach programme with employers to identify skills needs in industry and collaborate to devise relevant courses. Every year a national conference on VET and skills issues is held.
There are also assessments which look at specific skills and labour market issues. Examples include the work of the National Commission for the Promotion of Equality (NCPE), which analysed the skills of the inactive female population. Additionally, there was a Skills Profiling Exercise in the public sector in 2011.
In 2018, Jobplus published the "Occupational Handbook 2018", where it collected information related to 246 occupations of the Maltese labour market. These occupations cover more than 90% of the labour force. The information is obtained by means of desk-based research, online questionnaires and consultation meetings with various sectoral stakeholders (the State, educational institutions, private enterprises and other social partners) and makes it unique to Malta and the needs of the Maltese economy.
Skills forecasts
In 2017, together with Jobsplus and Malta Enterprise, the NCFHE published the report on the National Employee Skills Survey. The objective of the report was to collect information on the profile of employees working in different sectors of the Maltese economy and to undertake a skills forecast to determine changes in the demand for skills over the medium and long-term. The survey has also collected data on recent recruitment and, hard to fill vacancies. It also collected data on employees’ level of qualification in different sectors of the economy, their knowledge, skills and competences, as well as their training needs.
Malta’s economy is small, open and characterised by fast-changing and sometimes unpredictable developments, and therefore long-term skills forecasting is considered especially difficult. However, relevant data for Malta can be found through Cedefop’s skills forecasts. In addition, the Malta Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry in cooperation with PriceWaterhouseCoopers carries out monthly surveys among employers which include forecasts of short-term employment needs.
Skills foresight
In 2017, the eSkill foundation published ‘Malta ict skills audit 2017’ which presented a concise picture of the specific tech-skills in demand in Malta up to 2020.
Other skills anticipation practices
Jobsplus together with Malta Enterprise and the NCFHE conducted the first National Employee Skills Survey in 2016. This is a survey of employers which collects data on vacancies, recruitment difficulties, expected number of vacancies over the next 12 months/three years, and the qualifications and experience that will be required of applicants. It also collects information on employers’ appraisals of apprenticeships and traineeships schemes, internal skills mismatches and in-house training, and their collaboration with educational institutions.
The annual Malta Attractiveness Survey conducted by EY collects data from foreign-owned companies in Malta and presents their expectations of the future skills needs of the labour market. Results are published each year through a national conference.[v]
The National Statistics Office (NSO) regularly publishes information on both the labour market and the education system. This is normally on the basis of analysis of the LFS and administrative data from Jobsplus and educational institutions. Jobsplus also gathers data about job vacancies. These are not currently published in full, but headline figures are published in annual reports.
Graduate tracer studies are conducted but there is no systematic approach: the Centre for Labour Studies at the UoM has been commissioned to undertake such research for higher education, and the MCAST conducts tracer studies at the secondary level. The Student Services Department within the MEYR has an annual publication which provides information about the educational and employment choices of young people who have recently completed compulsory education.
The Employability Index provides information on whether employed graduates are underemployed (both horizontally – i.e. whether the economic sector matches the field of study - and vertically, i.e. whether their occupation requires their level of education). This is disaggregated by institution, the type of qualification obtained and broad field of study.
Other institutions, such as CEDEFOP, have been instrumental in conducting both country-specific research and wider comparative studies which have included Malta.
Dissemination and use
Use of skills anticipation in policy
It is difficult to pinpoint the influence of skills anticipation exercises on policy. The government and stakeholders recognise that alignment between the skills system and the labour market needs to be improved if skills gaps in the economy are to be remedied. The National Employee Survey and the Employability Index were launched to improve data on the extent to which skills supply is meeting demand. The 2016 launch of the NSC signals recognition of the need for skills anticipation results to feed into policy.
Target groups’ use of skills anticipation outputs
Some skills intelligence is available online or upon request. But a large part of the information collected through skills anticipation exercises remains unavailable. National conference showcase the results from some studies and some information is made available on the websites of the NSO, Jobsplus, the NCFHE and the UoM. However, these organisations do not publish all the data they collect. For example, vacancies data collected by Jobsplus or microdata on the labour market held by NSO are not in publicly available. The reasons for this in part relate to protecting privacy of people and employers included in the data, as the small size of Malta’s population (and thus of the survey samples) may jeopardise anonymity in some cases.
Please cite this document as: : Cedefop.(2022). Skills anticipation in Malta. Skills intelligence: data insights. URL [accessed XXX] |
Bibliography
- Cedefop. (2015). Malta: Skills Forecasts up to 2025.
- Cedefop/OECD/ETF/ILO/. (2014). Survey on Anticipating and Responding to Changing Skill Needs.
- EEPO. (2015). Country Fiches on Skills Governance in the Member States – Malta. Developed by the European Employment Policy Observatory for the European Commission. Brussels: European Commission.
- European Commission/ Cedefop/ ICF International/. (2014). European Inventory on Validation of Non-Formal and Informal Learning 2014: Country Report Malta.
- eSkills Malta Foundation. (2017). Malta ICT skills audit 2017. Building Malta’s Tech Talent Pipeline.
- __ (2018). National eSkills Strategy 2019-2021.
- EY. (2016). Malta’s Attractiveness for FDI Takes a Boost.
- Hawley-Woodall, J., Duell, N., Scott, D., Finlay-Walker, L., Arora, L. and Carta, E. (2015). Skills Governance in the EU Member States. Synthesis Report for the EEPO. Brussels: European Commission.
- ILO. (2015). Anticipating and Matching Skills and Jobs (Guidance note). Geneva: International Labour Organization.
- Jobplus. (2018). Occupational Handbook 2018.
- MEDE (now MEYR). (2014). Malta National Lifelong Learning Strategy 2020.
- Ministry for Finance. (2016). National Reform Programme.
- National Commission for Further and Higher Education (NCFHE) Malta. (2014). Apprenticeship-type Schemes and Structured Work-based Learning Programmes – Malta.
- NCFHE. (2014). Malta: VET in Europe – Country Report. Cedefop ReferNet.
- (2014). Apprenticeship-type Schemes and Structured Work-based Learning Programmes – Malta.
- __ (2015). Higher Education Strategy for Malta.
- __ (2016). Employee Skills Survey Ncfhe.gov.mt.
- NCFHE. (2017). National employee skills survey report.
- NCPE. (2012). Unlocking the Female Potential: Research Report. Malta: NCPE.
- OECD. (2016). Getting Skills Right. Assessing and Anticipating Changing Skill Needs. Paris: OECD Publishing.
- Public Service. Skills Profiling.
- TVM News. (2015). Employability Index Launched for Youths to Plan their Future. Tvm.com, 5 October.
Endnotes
[i]Ministry of Finance. (2016).
[iii]MEDE. (2014).
[iv]See https://www.cedefop.europa.eu/en/tools/matching-skills/all-instruments/linking-industrial-needs-and-vet-optimise-human-capital-esf-285
[v]EY. (2016).
Data insights details
Table of contents
Page 1
SummaryPage 2
DescriptionPage 3
Methods and toolsPage 4
Dissemination and usePage 5
BibliographyPage 6
Endnotes