Social expenditure categorised within the Unemployment function primarily provide aid to those individuals who have been made redundant from their workplace. Furthermore, compensation towards persons taking up early retirement schemes prior to the statutory retirement age, or jobseekers actively searching for employment whilst attending training programmes aimed at enhancing their employability, are also classified under this function.
Salient Points
Overview: 2024
1. Unemployment outlay grew by €1.7 million reaching €25.4 million.
2. Following the discontinuation of the COVID-19 Support Measures in May 2022, expenditure has reverted to pre-2020 levels.
Social Security Benefits: 2024
3. A €2.0 million rise in social security unemployment benefits from 2023, attributable to a €1.9 million increase in Unemployment Benefit.
4. There were 4,565 persons in receipt of unemployment benefits during the year, slightly higher (79) than the prior year.
5. Male recipients represented 52.6 per cent of the total beneficiaries.
6. Across the ESSPROS functions1, unemployment recipients reported the lowest share of beneficiaries-to-population in Malta standing at 0.8 per cent.
7. Claimants ranged from 1.3 per cent of Southern Harbour residents to 0.5 per cent of inhabitants in the Western district.
8. At local council level, the highest unemployment ratios were documented in Il-Marsa and Bormla (both 26 persons per 1,000 population). On the other hand, zero beneficiaries were recorded to be residing in L-Imdina and San Lawrenz.
Jobsplus: 2024
9. Spending towards Jobsplus schemes amounted to €7.6 million, €0.6 million higher than 2023.
10. 86.5 per cent of spending attributed to services.
11. There were 5,922 persons who participated in training courses organised by Jobsplus.
Other schemes: 2024
12. 14,265 households awarded electricity and meter rebates, 1,252 fewer than 2023.
13. In line with recent years, four persons were in receipt of the early retirement scheme established for former dockyard workers.
1Except for Housing, as zero social security benefits are classified under this function.
Charts
Tables
Maps
Methodological Notes
Social Security Benefits
1. Expenditure towards social security benefits is collected through the Treasury’s Corporate Financial Management Solution (CFMS).
2. Beneficiaries’ data is obtained from the Department of Social Security’s (DSS) Unique Beneficiaries Report.
3. As beneficiaries may be in receipt of multiple benefits simultaneously, aggregates may not necessarily be equivalent to the sum of the corresponding benefits as these recipients will only be counted once.
4. Persons in receipt of any form of unemployment assistance are also eligible to receive the special weekly bonus of €4.66 per week and the statutory bonus of €135.10 payable every six months. As bonus payments are solely provided as aggregates, the proportion allocated to claimants of these benefits is based on their corresponding outlay:
MDD/MSCL/MSY Voluntary Retirement Scheme
5. As data could not be collected, from 2019 onwards linear extrapolation was used to estimate the number of former shipyard workers who benefitted from the Government’s early retirement scheme.
6. For each reference year N, the expenditure EN is taken together with the corresponding expenditure for previous years EN-1 and EN-2, as reported in the Financial Report. These are combined with the number of beneficiaries reported in years N-1 (BN-1) and N-2 (BN-2), all of which are inputted into the linear extrapolation formula to estimate the number of recipients in year N (BN):
| BN-1 − BN-2 |
| EN-1 − EN-2 |
