Updated 11.45am with MUMN statement
Two major business lobbies have added their voices to warnings that the government is poaching workers from the private sector.
The Malta Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry and the Gozo Business Chamber both said that members were experiencing a "drastic employee drain" to the public sector, even when such jobs come with lower salaries.
A similar practice is plaguing the residential care sector, a Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses spokesperson told Times of Malta, with the health division allegedly keen to poach "hundreds" of nurses from private companies that provide care to elderly people in residential care.
Their warnings echo one made by the Malta Employers Association last month in its proposals for Budget 2022. The MEA had slammed the government for the practice and said that many of those posts could be filled by unemployed people instead.
The government had reacted to that claim by insisting it was not true.
Business lobby warnings
In their statement on Saturday, the Malta Chamber and Gozo Business Chamber said that it was clear that many government departments and entities were overstaffed. Poaching workers from the private sector runs contrary to business competitiveness and should be avoided where possible, they said.
“Both organisations appeal to government to curtail this practice as it will have long-term repercussions not only on the public sector wage bill, but also on the ability of the private sector to operate due to lack of human resources. This situation is already being experienced in many sectors,” they warned.
They called on authorities to order an independent review of public sector employment and resourcing. The government should also consider seconding underemployed resources to the private sector, they added.
MUMN warns of similar practices
An MUMN spokesperson said that the government is also poaching nurses employed with private companies, to employ within its health division.
Healthmark Malta and Care Malta - two private firms that provide care services - risk losing "hundreds" of nurses to the government if a planned call for applications is pushed through, the MUMN said.
"These private companies go through the trouble of finding and importing third-country nationals to work as nurses, only to then get them poached by the government," the union spokesperson said.
"The health division definitely needs nurses, but why should it decimate the private sector to do so?"
The MUMN said that it had ordered members that work at a 500-bed facility operated by Healthmark at St Vincent de Paul home to refuse admission to patients coming from Mater Dei Hospital, as the tug of war between the two sides heats up.
Healthmark has also requested an urgent meeting with the government and MUMN to discuss the issue, the union spokesperson said.