1.4 Unemployment Benefits Recipients
Social protection covers all measures from public or private entities to support households or individuals from a defined set of risks or needs, aiming to reduce poverty and vulnerability within societies. Throughout this domain, users will be presented the principal attributes of Malta’s social protection system, classifying data by ESSPROS function and social protection scheme. In Section 1.1, a review of the gross social outlay along the five-year period between 2020 and 2024 will be conducted. The remaining sections will then shift focus towards the ESSPROS modules; (1) Net ESSPROS (1.2), (2) Pension Beneficiaries (1.3) and (3) Unemployment Benefits Recipients (1.4).
Salient Points
Unemployment recipients fell by 3.3 per cent amounting to 11,347.
Women constituted 6,047 or 53.3 per cent of the overall beneficiaries.
The highest share of claimants was aged between 25 and 34 years old (28.3 per cent of the total).
On average 3,690 individuals received unemployment benefits monthly.
In comparison to 2023, higher average stock was reported under Jobsplus (189 more persons) and Contributory Benefits (88). In contrary, Non-Contributory average declined by 109 persons.
Charts
1.4.1. Monthly unemployment cash benefits recipients
Tables
Methodological Notes
1. As a first step towards the expansion of the beneficiaries’ data collected in ESSPROS beyond solely pensioners, the UBR module was introduced on a voluntary basis in 2020 following various discussions between the Social Protection Expert Group and key stakeholders. Member States (MSs) are required to report the annual number of recipients of unemployment cash benefits within the following five categories as found in the Core questionnaire and defined in ESSPROS manual Part 2, Section 7.2.1:
a. Full unemployment benefit;
b. Partial unemployment benefit;
c. Early retirement for labour market reasons;
d. Vocational training allowance;
e. Other cash periodic benefits.
2. Where available, data is to be further categorized by scheme, means-testing, gender and age-group (0-14, 15-24, 25-34, 35-44, 45 -54, 55-64 and 65+).
3. Malta’s questionnaire is completed through using various micro databases obtained from the DSS (contributory and non-contributory unemployment social benefits, including COVID-19 benefits), Jobsplus (Labour Market Policy measures) and Malta Enterprise (Wage Supplement).
4. Due to unavailable data, annual recipients of the MDD/MSCL/MSY Voluntary Retirement Scheme are instead estimated through linear extrapolation, using previous beneficiaries’ data together with the corresponding expenditure as reported in the ESSPROS Core System.
5. As unemployment benefits are generally paid within a short time frame, in addition to the annual number of recipients, MSs are also to report the average stock of beneficiaries at any point within the reference year. The compilation of average stock helps to smoothen out any significant variations encountered throughout the year, providing users with a clearer picture of the flow of unemployment benefits recipients. The higher the frequency of data observations collected across the year, the higher the accuracy of the resulting average. MSs are recommended by Eurostat to use a frequency of at least monthly data to maintain a satisfactorily level of accuracy.
6. Monthly stock is compiled for Malta’s data using the benefit periods (start and end dates as collected from sources) to identify the corresponding months every individual was in receipt of a benefit. Multiple periods are obtained in cases when a person is in receipt of more than one benefit, or the same benefit during different non-overlapping periods within the same year.
7. Furthermore, to maintain consistency between schemes, for each beneficiary their respective age is equivalent to that at the end of the reference year.
8. Presently, four schemes report at least one form of unemployment cash benefit:
a. Social Security Contributory Benefits;
b. Social Security Non-Contributory Benefits;
c. Jobsplus;
d. MDD/MSCL/MSY Voluntary Retirement Scheme;
