Malta welcomes foreign workers to fill labour shortage

Amit* cruised through the lanes of Marsaxlokk, a colourful Maltese fishing hamlet, on his way to pick up two passengers in his taxi. “I love my job in this country,” he said. “Malta was my entry to Europe.”

Amit* cruised through the lanes of Marsaxlokk, a colourful Maltese fishing hamlet, on his way to pick up two passengers in his taxi. “I love my job in this country,” he said. “Malta was my entry to Europe.” Amit arrived this year from Bangladesh, having paid  Euro 3,200 to an immigration agency. “I found an agency on Facebook that had advertised this job with a private taxi company. The agency helped me with my application and visa documents to come to Malta and work,” he told Rising Malta. “I’m now earning around 1,000 euros per month, some of which I send home. It has been an expensive process, but I’m happy.”

A few streets away, Nita*, who is from Northern India, waited for a bus to take her towards Malta’s capital, Valletta.

“I used to live in Dubai and had been working in the hospitality sector there. But I wanted to get to Europe and found a recruitment agency in Dubai which helped me get a Maltese work permit,” she told Rising Malta.

In recent years, the Maltese archipelago has become something of a hub, attracting thousands of migrants who fill labour shortages, especially in the hospitality, healthcare, and service industries.

Former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat,  in a June 2014 speech said he aimed to turn Malta into the “Next Dubai”, is credited with the migration flows in recent years.