More than half of employers say Malta has an employment/workers shortage.
The substance is right; the precise fraction is a slight overstatement. Across every Malta Chamber of SMEs / MISCO survey through 2025, a shortage of employees is the single biggest operational concern Maltese businesses report — and it is the runaway leader, more than double any other issue. But the headline figures are 43% (Q1 2025, SME Barometer), 46% (Q3 2025) and 41% (Business Performance Survey, published January 2026) of businesses citing employee shortage as one of their top operational problems — not 'more than half'. So as a statement of the dominant employer worry, Borg is on solid ground; as a literal headcount, 'more than half' runs a few points ahead of the published 41–46% range. The one caveat that pushes this toward defensible: those figures measure how many businesses rank the shortage among their top problems, which is a higher bar than simply agreeing a shortage exists — on a plain yes/no question more than half might well say yes, but no published survey asks it that way, so we can't confirm the literal majority.
The substance is right; the precise fraction is a slight overstatement. Across every Malta Chamber of SMEs / MISCO survey through 2025, a shortage of employees is the single biggest operational concern Maltese businesses report — and it is the runaway leader, more than double any other issue. But the headline figures are 43% (Q1 2025, SME Barometer), 46% (Q3 2025) and 41% (Business Performance Survey, published January 2026) of businesses citing employee shortage as one of their top operational problems — not 'more than half'. So as a statement of the dominant employer worry, Borg is on solid ground; as a literal headcount, 'more than half' runs a few points ahead of the published 41–46% range. The one caveat that pushes this toward defensible: those figures measure how many businesses rank the shortage among their top problems, which is a higher bar than simply agreeing a shortage exists — on a plain yes/no question more than half might well say yes, but no published survey asks it that way, so we can't confirm the literal majority.
We tested Borg's claim against the Malta Chamber of SMEs / MISCO survey series for 2025: the SME Barometer Q1 2025 (427 businesses, fieldwork April 2025), the Q3 2025 SME Barometer (456 businesses, October 2025), and the Business Performance Survey 2025 (351 businesses, fieldwork January 2026). The methodological question is whether 'more than half of employers say there is a shortage' is supported by the published numbers, or whether it overstates them.
Verdict lands at Mostly True because the direction is unambiguous and the magnitude is close. Employee shortage is the No. 1 operational concern of Maltese businesses in every 2025 reading, cited by roughly twice as many firms as any other single issue. But the published share runs 41–46%, not above 50% — so the literal 'more than half' is a few points high. The reason it does not fall further is a measurement nuance: the surveys record how many businesses place the shortage among their top operational problems (a demanding test), not how many simply believe a shortage exists. The latter, looser question would plausibly clear a majority — but it is not the question the published surveys ask, so the precise 'more than half' cannot be confirmed and is best read as a modest overstatement of a real and dominant concern.
Do more than half of employers really say Malta has a worker shortage
The shortage is real and it is the dominant concern of Maltese employers — that part of Borg's claim is squarely supported by the data. Where it runs slightly ahead of the evidence is the specific fraction. Every Malta Chamber of SMEs / MISCO survey through 2025 puts a shortage of employees at the top of the list of business problems, cited by more firms than any other issue by a factor of roughly two to one. But the published figures cluster in the low-to-mid forties — 43%, 46%, 41% — not above the 50% line that "more than half" asserts.
What the surveys actually measured
The most authoritative running measure of Maltese employer sentiment is the Malta Chamber of SMEs' SME Barometer, run in collaboration with the research firm MISCO, plus the Chamber's annual Business Performance Survey. Three readings bracket the period around the claim:
- SME Barometer Q1 2025 (427 businesses, fieldwork April 2025): employee shortage the top concern at 43%.
- SME Barometer Q3 2025 (456 businesses, October 2025): employee shortage cited by 46% as a top operational problem — "more than double the concern of any other issue."
- Business Performance Survey 2025 (351 businesses, fieldwork January 2026): employee shortage flagged by 41% as a pressing challenge.
So on the question the surveys actually ask — "what are your biggest operational problems?" — employee shortage wins comfortably, but with a plurality of around four-in-ten to just-under-half, not an outright majority. Borg's "more than half" sits a few points above the highest reading.
Why the gap is narrow, not damning
The reason this lands at Mostly True rather than something harsher is a measurement subtlety. The 41–46% figures count businesses that rank the shortage among their most pressing problems — a demanding test that forces respondents to weigh it against inflation, costs, competition and regulation. That is a much higher bar than the one implied by Borg's wording, which is simply whether employers say a shortage exists. On that looser yes/no framing, agreement would very plausibly exceed half: a firm can believe Malta has a labour shortage without ranking it as its own single worst headache.
The honest limit is that no published Maltese survey asks the plain "does a worker shortage exist?" question, so the literal majority cannot be confirmed from the data we have. Borg's number is therefore a reasonable characterisation of a genuine, dominant and well-documented concern — pushed a few points beyond what the published figures strictly show.
So is the claim accurate?
Mostly. A worker shortage is, by every available 2025 measure, the single biggest operational concern of Maltese employers — comfortably the most-cited issue, by roughly two to one. But the published share is 41–46%, not "more than half," so the specific fraction overshoots the evidence by a few points. The looser reading of Borg's words — that most employers acknowledge a shortage exists — is plausible but unverified, because no survey asks the question that way.
Verdict: Mostly True.