Malta's economy needs to be steered away from a dependence on increased imported manpower – with its negative impact on infrastructure, pollution, congestion and natural resources – to a more sustainable path based on higher value and less labour-intensive activities, the president of the Malta Employers' Association, Joanne Bondin, said at the annual conference of the International Labour Organisation.

"It is evident that the country is doing reasonably well according to basic macroeconomic indicators, but this success is impinging on the environment in the widest sense of the word and thereby causing a deterioration in the morale and well-being of our workers which is crucial to long-term competitiveness," Bondin said.

Times of Malta earlier this month quoted Finance Minister Clyde Caruana warning that Malta’s population will have to balloon to 800,000 over the next 17 years if the country is to keep its economy growing at the current rate, unless a new economic model is devised.

Calling for the economy to be steered away from a dependence on increased imported manpower, Bondin said that part of the solutions lies in opportunities provided by what is called the fourth industrial revolution, where emerging technologies offer scope for investment in high-skilled areas with prospects for quality jobs.

She added that new forms of employment call for a framework which allows for a flexible labour market but which also require safeguards for labour protection. Decent working conditions and non-standard forms of work organisation were not mutually exclusive.

"We fully believe in a labour market that offers protection against informality and discrimination. In Malta this is particularly relevant given that 30% of our labour force is currently non-Maltese."

Bondin said promoting an environmentally sustainable economy creates various challenges to ensure that all sectors of society benefit from such a transition. That includes a strategy to re-skill employees working in declining sectors to enable them to avail themselves of work opportunities in emerging economic activities. Such challenges could only be overcome with the participation of all social partners through a strengthening of tripartite social dialogue.