The exchange this week between Finance Minister Clyde Caruana and the Malta Chamber raises questions that Malta cannot afford to overlook.

The Minister questions an economic model that has relied heavily on expanding the workforce rather than investing sufficiently in technology and productive capital.

The Chamber argues that businesses have been operating within policy and regulatory conditions that encouraged precisely this model.

Both perspectives deserve consideration.

But beyond the disagreement over responsibility, there appears to be something important on which we can build.

Malta needs to move from an economy that depends on adding people to one that creates greater value through the people it employs.

That transition will require investment, technology, better policies and more productive organisations.

But it will also require us to reconsider how we develop human capability.

At ThinkPeople Nexus, we have started examining this question from the hiring end of the economy.

Our Malta Skills Observatory recently analysed approximately 4,500 unique job advertisements.

The initial findings are revealing:

  • 84%contained no advertised degree or minimum-experience requirement.
  • Only 26%explicitly requested digital skills.
  • Just 1.6%mentioned artificial intelligence.
  • 13.9%referred to training or development.
  • Only 2.9%explicitly mentioned career progression.

These figures represent advertised requirements and opportunities, not a complete picture of employer practices. Nor can one recruitment snapshot establish an economic trend.

Nevertheless, they raise questions worth examining.

Are we designing jobs simply to meet immediate workforce needs, or are we creating pathways through which people can develop, contribute and progress?

And if we want greater productivity through technology, are we investing sufficiently in the organisational and human capabilities necessary to make that technology productive?

I believe this is where the debate can move towards common ground.

Government influences the conditions through policy, regulation and incentives.

Employers translate those conditions into investment decisions, organisational structures and opportunities for their people.

Workers bring knowledge, experience, judgement and the capacity to develop.

None operates independently of the others.

At ThinkPeople Nexus, we see an opportunity to help connect these perspectives.

Not by attributing blame or claiming to possess all the answers, but by bringing evidence, organisational understanding and human capability into the same conversation.

This could mean examining how jobs are changing, identifying where skills and progression pathways are missing, and helping connect investment in technology with investment in the people expected to use it.

It could also mean developing shared indicators that allow policymakers and employers to understand whether the transition towards higher productivity is actually taking place.

Capital investment and human capability should not be competing priorities. They should reinforce one another.

As Malta prepares for Budget 2027 and looks towards Vision 2050, perhaps this is an opportunity to move beyond the question of who created the present model.

The more useful question is how we can work together to develop the next one.

Because productivity is not simply something we demand from people.

It is something we enable through the way we design work, develop capability and introduce technology.

And perhaps that is where our shared responsibility begins.

Jesmond Saliba
ThinkPeople Nexus

About the evidence: ThinkPeople Nexus Malta Skills Observatory analysis of approximately 4,500 unique job advertisements. The figures describe advertised requirements and opportunities; they do not establish the full range of employer practices or an economic trend.