Updated January 17 with Office of the President's reply
Public sector recruitment for several posts has been “stopped” and other vacancies are being identified as part of efforts to absorb Air Malta workers into alternative jobs, Finance Minister Clyde Caruana told Times of Malta.
Caruana announced plans on Friday to slash Air Malta’s 890-strong workforce to 420, with workers being offered the possibility of alternative jobs with the government.
Air Malta employees have been given two weeks to decide whether to apply for the scheme offering them alternative employment.
A similar job-cutting exercise at Enemalta that started in 2014 saw skilled workers like engineers being given gardening and maintenance jobs at the president’s palace, for example. The Office of the President told Times of Malta that there are currently no workers doing any work not according to their qualification or grade.
Caruana assured that efforts are being made to match Air Malta workers with jobs fitting their skills.
In what is being portrayed as Air Malta’s “last chance”, baggage and ground handling services will also be hived off, unprofitable routes will be cut and the airline will attempt to become a European carrier that could fly within other countries.
“Employees given two weeks’ time to decide whether to apply or not for the scheme”
In response to the Air Malta plans, the Chamber of Commerce warned that other state entities needed to ensure they did not find themselves in the same situation by taking on more employees than what they required.
“In this spirit, the Malta Chamber recommends that workers who will be shed from Air Malta will first be considered for secondment to the private sector, particularly given the acute shortages of human resources.
“This will avoid shifting the problem of excess employment to other state entities.”
Caruana told Times of Malta that he is open to the Chamber’s idea of also seconding workers to the private sector.
Meanwhile, Malta’s employers said yesterday that a decision to cut Air Malta’s staff by 50 per cent could prove to be a “win-win” for the government, affected workers and the private sector.
In a statement, the Malta Employers’ Association warned that it would be a mistake to find these workers jobs within the public sector, when they most likely have skills that many private companies require.
It said the public sector is already overstaffed and such employment will add a further €15m to recurrent expenditure.
Giving such workers jobs in the private sector, on the other hand, “will lead to a win-win situation for everyone involved,” the MEA said, adding that it was willing to help the government redeploy workers into the private sector.
Accountants and auditors have been refusing to sign off on Air Malta’s accounts since 2019, eight years after the company entered negative equity territory.
And over 16 years it racked up a total of €258 million in losses.
The airline’s executive chairman, David Curmi, who took over in February 2021, said on Friday that just like a doctor on an operating table, he had used all his expertise to stop the haemorrhage.
He was giving an overview of a four-year strategy, presented to the European Commission, to get the airline out of the red zone. One of his first decisions was to stop flights that were making the biggest losses. Although every route was running at a loss, some were worse than others, so he cut 20 of the 40 routes and saved the company €44 million. The network was contributing to 47 per cent of the losses, he said.
Between 2005 and 2020, Air Malta sold assets worth €209 million, including Selmun Palace Hotel, Holiday Inn, an insurance brokerage firm and its landing rights in Heathrow and London Gatwick airports.