X’wicc vili
Just look at the new Labour Party poster.
X’wicc vili.
Going on about the queues of young people waiting for a job at Smart City. There are NO young people waiting for a job at Smart City. Anyone trained in ICT is snapped up by the market immediately he or she enters it.
If they don’t want to work here in Malta, they are snapped up immediately wherever they choose to go in the European Union. Yes, that’s right: using the EU passport which Joseph and his Labour Party worked so hard to deny them.
If these billboards are going to be a game of snap, that’s exactly the point that should be made.
Oh, and another thing. Nobody wears their hair like that any more, gelled up into spikes at the front. Certainly not anyone aspiring to a career in ICT, anyway. What is he – 13 years old in 2002?
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Jien ilni mit-2008 nistenna li l-Labour jghidilna il-policies il-godda tieghu. Joseph Muscat hallieni fil-kju.
Tghid hemm xi cans li narawhom fuq il-billboards?
Ilna nistennew 25 sena (kif jghidu huma) biex inkunu fil-gvern.
Partit Laburista
Snapped up immediately in Europe? Where? Spain? Italy? or maybe Greece? Romania perhaps?
[Daphne – Europe has 27 member states, Albert. My sons were snapped up immediately in London, and I mean immediately. One of them hasn’t even left university yet. It’s the same with all their friends in certain fields.]
Ah yes there is always the possibility of working as a waiter in London.
[Daphne – No, Albert, not a waiter. Believe me when I say this is a subject I know quite a bit about. And there is nothing wrong with working as a waiter anyway. Don’t be such a patronising snob. You’re supposed to be a socialist.]
In any case did Malta enter the EU so as to export its best brains?
[Daphne – I see that you are a socialist, after all. Malta does not OWN its citizens. it cannot export them or decide to force them to stay. The Communists tried that and it failed, remember? Yes, one of the reasons we joined the European Union was so that people who wanted to leave and maximise their opportunities elsewhere would be able to do so. What are you suggesting, that they should be kept trapped here to work for the greater glory of Albert Farrugia?]
Then what will remain here?
[Daphne – Hafna Laburisti u racanc. Why are you complaining? That’s where your voter base is. That’s why they voted against EU membership.]
I thought that with Smart City the best brains of Europe would stand in a queue similar to the one on the poster to come to work here. Not the other way round. In any case, your comment has for sure given the LP an idea for yet another poster.
In The Times, just today, we find out that a Maltese physicist contributed in this decade’s most important scientific event – the Higgs Boson particle discovery. Meanwhile people like Albert want to force high-achievers to waste their potential by locking them up on this rock.
Needless to say, the EU offers ‘direct’ benefits even to average people like myself. My company, and its clients, compete in a larger market; its employees, including myself, can access training and educational opportunities that my parents could only dream of.
Albert, all the ICT students who have just finished their course found jobs the day after they finished their last exam – basically they still did not know the result.
They had job interviews in April. And their pay is in the region of 20K per year.
This is the real situation out there – ICT companies are competing with each other to head-hunt and poach each other’s employees.
“And there is nothing wrong with working as a waiter anyway. Don’t be such a patronising snob.”
Unless you’re Joseph Cuschieri. Tsk tsk.
[Daphne – You’ll have to put that in context. I never had any problem with Cuschieri being a waiter. As I recall, he was one of the few who smiled in that joint, Magic Kiosk. I do have a problem with the Labour Party buying a parliamentary seat off Cuschieri and sending a former waiter to Brussels in return.]
And for the record, let’s stop referring to job opportunities in London whenever we’re flaunting our EU membership. If the Brits were presented with a referendum tomorrow, they’d be out of the EU faster than I can type the rest of this sentence.
[Daphne – A total non sequitur. London is the natural first port of call for Maltese people because it’s still our spiritual capital and the language and culture are comprehensible. You’d think Rome would be more appealing, but it isn’t – at all.]
“”spiritual home”‘ sounds very much like a comment from a neo colonialist.
[Daphne – But that is in fact the case, Raphael, whether we like it or not. The Maltese have a long, long history of moving to London, and EU membership helped make that very easy. It’s also a fact that Maltese people identify with London more than they do with the Italian cities nearer home. And prefer shopping there, too. This is an indisputable fact. Yes, the reason probably is because it was our colonial capital for so many generations, but that is the way it is now and I can’t see it changing any time soon.]
The only advantage the UK has over other EU countries is its language. The weather is certainly not appealing. The food is boring (unless copied from southern shores ) . The humour is just tooooooo dry…….lets just stop there. Give me the éternal city anytime.
[Daphne – Rome over London? Come off it, Raphael. The food in London is so much better, and more varied. And anyway, one doesn’t travel or spend time in a place only for the food. Or the weather. What is there to do in Rome, other than sit around in cafes in weather as blazingly tedious as Malta’s, surrounded by….Italians and American tourists?]
I dislike Rome and lived in London with an ex partner who worked in ICT. True there are opportunities in London but only in certain fields and even in those certain fields, no matter how qualified you start off at the lower rungs and the 24/7 culture means you often have to work nights.
You probably pay through the nose to live in shoe box and your working hours are too long to enjoy perks such as the theatre. Public transport grounds to a halt because of engineering works and going out at the weekend is a nightmare. The weather is depressing to say the least.
In the not so in demand fields, most of the work is temporary. True, salaries are good but temping is the best way to reach burn out.
London is still my spiritual home but despite the lower salaries in Malta, I can afford services and luxury I could not afford in London. Just to give an example, a small patch of laser hair removal at a private clinic in Malta costs Euro 25. In London I paid £200. Dyeing of roots at a low end hair salon in London costs £80. Here I pay around Euro 20 at a hairdresser in the heart of Sliema. Personal training in Malta costs anything between 20 – 40 Euro an hour. In London it’s between £80 -140.
As to shopping, I don’t even have to leave my laptop as I buy everything online from English department stores.
We have spacious homes in Malta and affordable services. Malta has changed for the better since EU membership and the grass isn’t always greener. The high end London salaries don’t stretch that far if you rent somewhere central and you really have no option as otherwise you have no life at all renting in Zones 3 outwards.
Your 20s and early 30s are a time of financial struggle if you are self-made and want to get on to the property market on lower salaries. In London, though you would probably not want to get onto the property market at all. The last flat I lived was valued at £150 k and it barely offered an equivalent space to the living room of my much cheaper Malta flat.
An EU passport is a good thing to have because it gives you choice and leaves you open to experiences we could only dream of pre-EU. We really don’t have it too bad here. Yes salaries will eventually rise but so will the cost of services and taxes. Incidentally forgot to mention council tax. How many owners of the crop of vacant properties would hang on to their properties if they had to pay council tax.
They have another one with the caption:
Ilni 4 snin nistenna l-operazzjoni
But then they forgot to remind us that Mintoff has been brought back to life on countless occassions AT MATER DEI.
He wasn’t ever sent back home because there were no Maltese doctors as used to happen during The Golden Years.
“But then they forgot to remind us that Mintoff has been brought back to life on countless occassions AT MATER DEI.”
Damn shame that. The Grim Reaper has been cheated far too long in that particular case.
Or sent him back home because there is the queue (in their billboard) waiting for treatment.
Actually he is already back to normal and ready to be discharged home from hospital.
Indeed right now there is a shortage of qualified ICT qraduates. Our company has been looking for a few for quite a while now and the only ones we found were not even Maltese.
Why should a qualified Maltese ICT graduate work for pennies in Malta?
Pennies? A 21 yr old, just out of uni earning over 20k excluding bonuses, pennies?
Thanks to the PN and not Hamburger Joe (he was doing his utmost to ruin the opportunity), Maltese graduates have the choice of the whole world, and good for them.
I am very happy that my son, who has just finished his uni course and is already working, shall be in one of the best uk universities reading for his masters, come next September.
And to state it again, this is thanks to the PN and not Hamburger Joe.
“I am very happy that my son, who has just finished his uni course and is already working, shall be in one of the best uk universities reading for his masters, come next September.”
You’d think no Maltese person had graduated from a UK university before 2004.
[Daphne – Very few did so, and it was mainly those with well-to-do parents who could afford the STG15,000 – 20,000 a year in tuition fees (for the top universities), and the several thousands over and above that in rent and living expenses.]
Forsi s-sales pitch kien zbaljat. Ha npoggihielhom b’mod differenti li jappella ghall-baser instincts:
Ghadek kemm gradwajt fl-IT. X’tippreferi?
1) gurnata xoghol ir-Rinella, saghtejn traffiku taht xemx infernali biex tasal lura d-dar, imbaghad harga ma’ Ritienne, jew
2) gurnata xoghol x’imkien fl-Ewropa, nofs siegha trasport super-efficjenti fi klima temperata biex tasal lura l-appartament, imbaghad harga ma’ Ursula/Dagmar/Sigrid/Zita/Kasia etc etc?
Nispera li il kumment tieghek huwa fuq ton umoristiku…jigifieri int qed tinsinwa li ahjar tahdem barra minn Malta milli Malta stess? ghaliex ghandu jkun hekk, nghid jien? u ahjar ikollok hbieb barranin milli Maltin?!?!?
[Daphne – Dear God in heaven.]
Jien fuq kollox niccajta, minbarra fejn jidhol il-crumpet. B’risposta ghall-mistoqsija tieghek:
“jigifieri int qed tinsinwa li ahjar tahdem barra minn Malta milli Malta stess?” Iva
“ghaliex ghandu jkun hekk, nghid jien?” Ghax Malta blata minuskola fil-periferija ta’ kollox, b’lista monumentali ta’ zvantaggi.
“u ahjar ikollok hbieb barranin milli Maltin?!?!?” Ovvja. Izda jien semmejt girlfriends hemmhekk, mhux hbieb (the clue is in the names, speci). U anke hawnhekk, ir-risposta hija ovvja.
Ippermettili nkun crude, R Zammit. Malta mimlija nies ghaddejjin fuq kemm m’hawnx isbah minn Malta, u kemm ghandek tkun kburi u thobb lil pajjizek, u antifoni bhal dawn.
Imbaghad fl-istess nifs jiftahru kemm hadu nejkiet tajbin ma’ tfajliet Nordiko-Balkano-Visegrado-Slavici.
Jien qatt ma kont hekk. Mohhi, qalbi, u l-appendici huma kollha fl-istess post.
What daphne? can you answer instead of H.P. Baxxter ?
[Daphne – Better not. I might find myself being really rude.]
Bingo, H.P. Baxxter.
Ma taħsibx li meta ssemmi t-trasport super-effiċjenti barra qiegħed tagħti raġun lill-billboard l-ieħor dwar id-dewmien għal tal-linja, Sur Baxxter? :)
Le. Ghax il-Labour li ghamel dak il-billboard ma jasalx jirrealizza li l-problemi tat-traffiku f’Malta huma kawzati minn densita` kbira wisq ta’ karozzi li hija nnifisha ikkawzata minn sovrapopolazzjoni.
Arriva jew kumpanija ohra, kien ikollna l-istess problema. Issa ghidli int, liema partit f’Malta se jaghmel policies biex inaqqas il-popolazzjoni ta’ Malta?
Ghallinqas il-PN tana passaport Ewropew biex immorru nahdmu fejn hemm inqas minn 500 abitant/ sq. km.
[Daphne – Maybe Qeghdin Sew has never been on a bus across London, which has roughly the same traffic density as Malta, but wider roads.]
@Baxxter: Il-kumment kien pjuttost tongue in cheek, però li qiegħed issemmi int huma kollha raġunijiet validi, għalkemm trid tammetti li ħafna affarijiet ħżiena li saru mar-riforma fit-trasport pubbliku kienu mnejkin minn sorm ommhom.
Ma naħsibx li hu għal kollox it-tort tal-Arriva jekk għażlu li jġibu l-karozzi King Long li iktar ma jaħdmux milli jaħdmu. Ma naħsibx li d-deċiżjoni finali biex jinġiebu l-bendy buses kienet tal-Arriva, eċċ. Mhux tort tal-Arriva jekk biċċa resurfacing ta’ triq iddum sentejn biex titlesta. TM għandha tort għal ħafna affarijiet.
@Daphne: When I can, I use the Tube/overground during the day because it’s generally a faster mode of transport (inexplicable delays and signal failures apart). That’s not a possible alternative in Malta for obvious reasons. But I have caught night buses across London at 3am, and I was usually very satisfied with their reach. It’s a bit unfair to compare the Maltese public transport (or anywhere else’s) to London though.
[Daphne – It’s not unfair at all. People who complain about the length of time it takes to travel by bus in Malta live in a netherworld. What do they expect? The roads are jammed solid with traffic.]
Also funny that you should call the roads in London ‘wider’. The bendy buses which ended up in Malta were decommissioned from London precisely because they were considered unmaneuverable in London’s narrow roads. Tsk.
[Daphne – I don’t ‘call’ London roads wider. That they are wider is an indisputable fact.]
Qeghdin Sew, if our useless fat historians and sociologists (cringe) were doing their job, I wouldn’t be writing this, but as with most things, I have to write the goddamn book myself.
But I’m pressed for time, I’m doing this pro bono, and I can just sketch the points here. You’ll understand because you seem like the thinking sort.
Look at a map of Malta. The maps! Look at urban develoment over the last 200 years.
THAT is why it takes you two hours to get to the office every morning.
Now the faux-neutral intellectuals (my arse) will look on in horror as I accuse Mintoff of fucking up another in the long list of elements of national development: urban and transport planning. The ridiculous “oqsma” and Triq Aldo Moro and housing estates. .Why do you think there is a “North” and “South”. Because the only connection is throught hat bottleneck.
Fifty years ago, the population was 300 000. We’re now 420 000. A whopping 35 % increase.
And these CRETINS never planned for it. Never.
Because they’re just village goddamn politicians. By the time 2004 and the Dawn of a National Consciousness of Hey We Want European Standards came along, it was too late. What can anyone do? Pull down whole towns?
The only, partial, solution (Baxxter’s Cup of Bitterness) is to halve the number of vehicles by introducing odd-even rationing. And I mean ALL fricking vehicles, including those ubiquitous delivery vans which bring a tear to the eyes of PN’s “negozji zghar” afficionados.
Then there’s a one-child policy (yes, desperate times) but don’t EVEN get me started.
Baxxter, ma (2) tista izzid li bhala Malti tghix f’pajjiz Ewropew, kollegi u hbieb jghiru ghalik ghax meta trid tista tinzel f’pajjiz li huma jahsbu li hu ezotiku ghal btala fix-xemx.
Din qatt ma gratli, imma hija perfettament plawsibbli.
@ Gakku
Ma rridx nkun negattiv, imma meta isemmi Malta, hafna nies tan-Nord Ewropa jassocjawna mal-kacca. Ir-rapport li deher fuq RTL ghadu ma ntesiex. http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120508/local/german-broadcaster-screens-cabs-feature-on-hunting-in-malta.418961
U lanqas dan il-galantom:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHcU-o_odd0
Jew dawn:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hh8gwVPuFTQ.
L-aktar haga inkwetanti ghalija ma hiex il-kacca illegali, lanqas l-injuranza ta min kien iffilmat, izda l-kummenti fuq Youtube. Min minghalih hareg ta hero, u qabez ghal-Malta u hutu Maltin, aktar tefana fit-tghajn, ghax uriena li ahna nies li ma naccetawx kritika.
“Ilni 4 snin nistenna li jaqa’ l-gvern biex insir l-izghar Prim Ministru ta’ Malta.
Gonzi hallieni fil-kju.”
Snapped up immediately? are you being serious? Me and my class-mates got our DEGREE last year, only 5 from 30 were offered a job, the rest well.. we’re in still waiting to be “snapped up”.
[Daphne – When you choose a fake name, I strongly suggest you don’t pick an unusual surname. I’m talking about ICT, not theatre studies or similar. And it’s not even the degree that counts, it’s commitment, attitude and aptitude. For example, if you have a track record of voluntary work and involvement in university organisations – freak shows like Pulse are a bad idea – employers look more favourably at your CV. Yes, ICT graduates are snapped up immediately. Basically, anybody with a good attitude and proper thinking/communication skills is snapped up.]
At the ICT company where I work, often people just don’t bother turning up for a second interview. If we don’t move fast, they’re gone.
I hear the situation is the same in accounts.
Waiters, not so much.
It would be great if Smart City had 7000 jobs to offer, but then the billboard would be complaining about all the foreigners working here.
Pull the other one. Records show that over 95% of graduates have a job within six months of their final exams.
Please state which course you were in and I can get you official figures.
Heck, anyone can find a job even in London within six DAYS of their final exams. The issue is whether they’re packing the grocery bags for Waitrose customers or working in Canary Wharf.
[Daphne – How defeatist, Qeghdin Sew. Actually, the jobs packing grocery bags and waiting tables are the hardest to get, because anyone can do them, so they might as well pick your name out of a hat and probably do. I have two sons in London, and neither of them had any difficulty finding employment, or switching employment. And I can assure you they’re not packing grocery bags by any stretch of the imagination.]
“And I can assure you they’re not packing grocery bags by any stretch of the imagination.”
I never doubted that for a moment. It’s just that I find these graduate employment statistics rather silly without specifying the kind of jobs they get, median salary, etc.
Incidentally this information is usually quite hard to come by in Malta. (Good luck obtaining specific results from the few ‘recruitment specialists’ that carry out surveys.)
@ Qeghdin Sew
When I quoted 95%, I was referring to work related to their qualification.
So your comment on packing bags is a figment of the imagination.
@Snoopy
“When I quoted 95%, I was referring to work related to their qualification.”
A bit late in the day and I don’t expect you to see this, but I’d be interested to have a look at these records you mention. Can you point us to the source?
“Basically, anybody with a good attitude and proper thinking/communication skills is snapped up.”
That was the case until just a couple of years ago. Don’t make it sound so easy.
[Daphne – It IS that easy. The problem is that communication skills are a very real problem in Malta. People turn up to interviews with appalling manners, disgraceful self-presentation, and inability to have a proper and civilised exchange with their interviewers, show no initiative, have a CV with nothing on it except educational achievements and a bit of work experience, demonstrate no interest in anything outside their hamster’s cage, and then wonder why they don’t stand out. Yes, people who are demonstrably alert and intelligent and bright-eyed and able to converse properly are snapped up at once. The market is screaming out for them. But they have to have the right set of skills.]
I stand by my claim: it is generally difficult to find a graduate job even for the native British students right now.
Most of them have good communication skills, have two or three internships with reputable companies under their belts (sadly this practice is not commonplace in Malta), and have certainly had their fair share of extracurricular achievements precisely because they know how much they’re valued by UK employers. They’re generally very smooth talkers too. And yet they’re finding it difficult right now. (I have access to a far larger sample of UK job seekers.)
Obviously things will be easier when you’re applying for a very technical job, a small boutique firm, or you already have 5-10 years of experience in a sector (although it’s fresh graduates we’re speaking of here), but that’s not up everyone’s street.
The larger firms also have more rigorous filtering processes in place for graduate hires. I’d like to see the MCAST students I know (heck, even most UoM grads) try their hand at online psychometric tests, inbox exercises, case studies, etc.
[Daphne – That is absolutely not the case at all. I have one son who moved from Facebook to one fund management company to another fund management company, by the age of 23 and while still a PhD student. And another who develops web applications for the Financial Times. They are part of a network of Maltese people their age, all of whom have good jobs in London. Were businesses waiting for people to arrive from Malta to fill those jobs? Not really. But people from Malta filled those jobs and “native British students” did not. That’s the way it is. Your generalisations are off the mark.]
Daphne – you cannot extrapolate your personal experience of the success of your two sons into a generalist statement that this is how it is for everyone else. Even if everyone else meets all of the criteria you have mentioned here.
[Daphne – It’s the same with their friends, Raphael. You have no idea just how many Maltese in their 20s there are working in London right now – NOT as waiters or packing grocery bags. I think Maltese people actually have an advantage of sorts: an application from a Maltese stands out in the pile of hundreds from British, Spanish, Italians and French (or Chinese) in the same way that an application from, say, a Hawaiian would.]
My experience with my graduate students and my son’s experience are the same as Daphne’s. I have been involved in high tach science for over 20 years now, and my difficulty is not obtaining research funds, but finding researchers.
Most end up either working (mostly in industry) or else be head-hunted by institutions outside Malta. At least now I can (and have done) head-hunt European researchers, though the language barrier in both cases is a problem.
@Daphne
“I have one son who moved from Facebook to one fund management company to another fund management company, by the age of 23 and while still a PhD student.”
Not to detract anything from his merits, but assuming that the PhD is on a full time basis (which is the logical thing to do at that age), he’s either pulling off a Joseph Muscat (without a ghostwriter, I should hope) or the three jobs must be part time or (paid) internships, both of which are significantly easier to get into. There’s more competition for full time jobs. Apples and oranges.
[Daphne – I’m afraid you’re completely wrong, largely because, I suspect, you see mediocrity as being the top standard. Somebody who grew up with a mother who read full-time for a degree while also working long hours is going to take that as the norm and not believe it is impossible or exceptional. Also, what are the genetic and environmental odds, do you think, of him needing a ghost writer? The comparison is unfair to Joseph Muscat: not that I mean to diss him or anything, but you have to compare like with like and going on the available evidence, I don’t think there was an ice-cube’s chance in hell of Muscat being selected for a PhD programme at the LSE at just 21, after having completed a master’s there by 20.]
“They are part of a network of Maltese people their age, all of whom have good jobs in London. Were businesses waiting for people to arrive from Malta to fill those jobs? Not really. But people from Malta filled those jobs and ‘native British students’ did not. That’s the way it is. Your generalisations are off the mark.”
I never said it’s any more difficult for Maltese people to find jobs in London than it is for other candidates (you were the one blaming the inadequate manners and what not of most Maltese), but the market is what it is. As I said initially, don’t make it sound so easy.
[Daphne – It isn’t easy for those with unmarketable skills and degrees in theatre studies and English, but believe me, it’s pretty easy for the others. Yes, there’s a lot of competition, but a lot of it is dross, and besides that, Maltese people have a USP in the pile of thousands of CVs: a stand-out nationality that immediately attracts attention and interest and helps make it through the sorting process. If you have a thousand CVs from British, Chinese and Spanish people, and one from a Maltese, it’s the Maltese you’ll remember.]
You are making the following wrong assumptions:
1. You made it seem like ALL the qualified (academic AND otherwise) Maltese who apply get chosen. Wrong. The existing ‘network of Maltese’ could be much larger if the market wasn’t as tough as it is now. The same applies for candidates of all other nationalities because the problem is the market, not their nationality.
[Daphne – Where are all the Maltese looking for work in London? I know of two, and they’re both on internships anyway. It’s all very well to sit at home in Malta and say ‘Oh if the market were better in London, I would find a job there.’ But they don’t actually pack their bags, move there and try looking, do they. Those who do that find a job within weeks and at the most, a few months. The initiative principle applies: if you don’t have the initiative to move to London to look for work, the chances are you don’t have the initiative employers are looking for. The fact that you’ve taken a risk and moved to a different country is already a big plus in a prospective employer’s eyes.]
2. No matter how many Maltese young adults ‘with good jobs’ there are in London right now, the Maltese community will forever remain a very small sample and there is NO WAY you can extrapolate the Maltese success stories to reflect the general situation of the UK job market right now. Not if you care about statistical significance anyway.
[Daphne – We are talking at cross purposes. I never said the UK job market is good. I said something quite different: that Maltese job-seekers seem to have an unfair advantage over others in this market. Those who come here to look for work seem to have no problem finding it.]
Don’t get me wrong – I don’t have a chip on my shoulder when it comes to job hunting, but I thought I’d correct the general misconceptions because your assertions about the UK job market are plain wrong. Seems I wasn’t the only one pointing this out to you.
[Daphne – Given that you insist on anonymity while talking to a person who isn’t anonymous, I can only guess that perhaps you know far fewer people in their 20s and 30s who moved to London from Malta than I do.]
@Snoopy
You cannot compare technical research with the rest of the job market. There are only as many suitable researchers in the world whose specialisation fits the requirements for particular research projects. It is certainly very common to head-hunt researchers from other countries. It happens all the time in top universities and research projects. Your typical candidate for a job in London, on the other hand, is very rarely a unique snowflake.
In ICT? Then you must really suck. As in rip up your degree/certificate of ‘attendance’ and go be a clerk.
All the people who graduated from my course and wanted a job got a job. I had a job before I graduated and I’m no high flyer.
[re: Daphne] I know an employed ICT grad, who went to an office formal wearing shorts, slippers and a Nike top. Most people there wore shirts that were worth more than what he was wearing.
I can confirm what Daphne says.
Yes, I have a degree in IT and moved to the UK without any problems.
I can assure you that anyone working in the IT field will be able to move to the UK in matter of weeks. There is plenty of work here, whether its support, networking, development, BI etc.
Talking to friends who still live in Malta, it’s not as bad as people depict [with regards to the IT sector]. They don’t have any problems in switching jobs and usually with better working conditions and higher wages.
It depends. Good IT professionals with more than 3 years of experience can move to pretty much anywhere in the world.
Sorry I can’t help myself imma ‘vera wicchom u sormhom l-istess.’
You’ve got to be stupid or so steeped in prejudice to consider voting for Labour and the same crooks who so stifled our country in the’70s to ’80s.
I simply can’t understand those people who say they are fed up of PN and want a change but don’t consider what they will be voting in instead.
A change for hell? No thank you. I’d rather stay put.
Germany has a deficit of engineers (5000 are lacking only in Bavaria) and it’s becoming a problem. Angela is concerned that it will slow economic growth and there is an active recruitment drive to get them from other countries.
Sorry to barge in on the conversation, but please note that in one of their new upcoming and awe inspiring billboards, they use the text:
“Ilni snin nistenna facilitator fil-klassi ghat-tifla”
I would like to point out that the term ‘facilitator’ was abolished ‘snin’ ilu.
Now the correct terminology is LSA – Learning support assistant.
Ask MCAST and the LSA courses they have been giving for the past couple of years now. Seems to me like the PL PR is still stuck behind the queue in 2006. All I can say is “il-pacenjza”.
Many Maltese people already have enough trouble pronouncing all the syllables in ‘facilitator’ properly, let alone knowing what a LSA is.
What about ITS students? My son arrived from abroad and we were still in the car back from airport when he was snapped up immediately for work. He s only 20, and starting at 1500 euros a month.
“Going on about the queues of young people waiting for a job at Smart City. There are NO young people waiting for a job at Smart City. Anyone trained in ICT is snapped up by the market immediately he or she enters it.”
Daphne, just because there are plenty of ICT jobs in Malta shouldn’t excuse the fact that Smart City never materialised.
[Daphne – I think in an irritatingly precise way, so the way I see it, if the campaign is about Smart City failing to materialise (not the government’s fault because it is a private project) then it should be about the project failing to materialise. It should not be about people waiting for jobs there, because as I said, there are none. So the message fails. On the contrary, Smart City, if it materialises, is going to create a massive PROBLEM in the Maltese labour market. The pressure of demand on the short supply of skilled people will cause an escalation in salaries and Dutch auctions for the best, and people will have to be brought in anyway. It is the rental market that will do well – and shops, restaurants and so on. Jobs for Maltese? Hardly. They’ve got them already.]
This was a major selling point of the PN’s electoral manifesto and it’s a promise as yet undelivered. There’s no changing that fact, even if the Government acted as a conduit to allow jobs in this sector to be provided through other means.
Let’s also keep in mind that both the betting industry (the source of many of the better ICT jobs in Malta right now) and the financial services sector are quite volatile in that foreign companies will happily relocate to the next tax haven that comes along. That’s how they relocated to Malta from Scandinavia and the Caribbean (betting) and the UK (financial services) in the first place.
[Daphne – That is the case with everything, in every market, unless you’re mining for precious metals or drilling for oil. The trick is to keep them happy for as long as possible, and to have a Plan B. That’s why I don’t vote Labour, among other reasons.]
It’s also quite easy to get screwed if the EU steps in to regulate the sector. This was going to happen in the betting industry when the French cried foul a couple of years ago.
You shouldn’t depict the betting and the financial services sectors as something that’s here to stay. Although the volumes and added-value are incomparable, they are not sustainable as, say, something more ‘indigenous’ like tourism (which is in itself very volatile due to other factors).
[Daphne – Tourism is not ‘sustainable’ at all. It is one of the most volatile sectors, for the simple reason that competition is even greater than it is for betting and financial services. If nobody wants to come here, or the wrong people do, we’re screwed.]
“The trick is to keep them happy for as long as possible, and to have a Plan B. That’s why I don’t vote Labour, among other reasons.”
They do not even have plan A.
Totally true…where I work we’ll recruit any ICT graduate with the right attitude and manners.
Actually I’d usually recruit people with the right manners, who have the right attitude and a good level of English before I even consider their technical skills.
Technical skills can be taught easily while changing how a person speaks and thinks is close to impossible. The problem is that finding well-mannered people is becoming increasingly difficult.
Minn dawn il-posters qed jidher car li l-Labour mhux Programm Elettorali biss m’ghandhomx imma lanqas idejat ghall-posters.
Ghax minflok ikunu proattivi u jghidulna x’bi hsiebhom jaghmlu jekk ikunu fil-gvern qed jistennew il-posters tal-PN u jwiegbu lilhom.
U dan jidher ovvju ghax ta’ pappagalli li huma irrepetew l-istess image tan-nies fil-kju li hemm fil-poster tal-PN. Inkredibbli x’nies dawn! Mhux ta’ b’xejn li spiccaw iduru fuq Karmenu Vella biex jaghmel il-programm elettorali ghax m’ghandhom l-ebda ideja x’se jaghmlu jekk ikunu fil-gvern ghax ghamel kollox diga’ l-gvern Nazzjonalista.
Allura l-uniku haga li jibdew jaghmlu hi li joqghodu jikkritikaw lill-gvern ta’ qabilhom u jivvintaw il-gideb dwar kif ikunu saru l-affarijiet fi zmien gvern tal-PN. Bhal tal-hofra u ta’ taht it-tapit li kien ihobb isemmi Alfred Sant.
U ghall-gideb u biex ipingu l-affarijiet kif jaqbel lilhom, tilghabilhomx.
We Maltese may be lacking in Olympic Medals but not when it comes to intellectual abilities and hard work. That is where we Maltese stand out, obviously the educated ones.