The Maltese economy is increasingly dependent on the importation of labour. GDP growth at all costs seems to be the administration’s primary strategy. Despite the pious political rhetoric about diversifying the economy to depend less on imported labour, and more on investment in high-skilled human resources and technology, there is a glaring lack of planning to shift growth to higher added-value activities.

In an interview with Times of Malta, Identità CEO Mark Mallia argues that as Malta grapples with overpopulation, “the problem is not foreign workers but that we have reversed the principle of recruitment: Malta is bringing more workers than it needs, with the skills it doesn’t need.” It appears that Identità’s brief is to tackle the symptoms of overpopulation, rather than the root cause.

The government’s narrative on the need to mass import third-country nationals remains unchanged. Mallia encapsulates this mindset by commenting that recruiting foreign workers should not be a problem, adding, “After all, the economy is growing, the supply of Maltese workers is not getting any bigger, and unemployment is close to zero.”

Astonishingly, policymakers fail to acknowledge that continuing to increase the population to support low-return economic activities is straining the natural capacity limitations of the country to its breaking point. In the last decade, human resources planning has been based on a regulation-lite, open-door policy that enabled employers to get all the workers they need as long as the cost of labour was cheap.

So, the population soared, creating unavoidable pressures on the island’s infrastructure, including roads, public medical services, an exponential increase in construction projects, and pressures on the water and energy services. Rather than develop a strategic plan to steer the economy in a different trajectory, policymakers resort to the blame game and promise to introduce administrative measures to regulate temping agencies.

By doing so, the government wants to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. Put simply, it does not wish to antagonise employers who want to treat workers as a commodity, but at the same time, pretends to address people’s growing concerns about the effect of uncontrolled population growth on their quality of life. This is what weak leadership looks like.

Changing course will not be easy. The economy has become structurally dependent on imported high-skilled and low-skilled cheap labour. Of course, we will always need foreign workers to satisfy the critical needs for services in the community. For instance, our public health and care services would collapse if third-country medical professionals were to leave the country suddenly.

What is needed is a phased strategy to wean businesses off the current operational model based on importing labour as and when required. Labour must never be a commodity that can be procured at the lowest cost as the market dictates.

Policymakers must avoid the risk of tolerating a moral vacuum in our society. Many foreign workers are being exploited, not just by temping agencies, but also by some employers whose only objective is profit maximisation. This abuse will never be addressed effectively just by tweaking administrative regulations, which seems to be the government’s preferred strategy.

The country needs transformational, solid leadership to define what needs to be done to steer the economy in the context of the opportunities and the limitations intrinsic to the harsh realities we are experiencing today.