Finding enough workers is the biggest challenge for employers, even on Gozo.
Documentary fact. Gozo's unemployment rate sits at one of the lowest levels in NSO's series and Jobsplus reports record vacancies — particularly in tourism, hospitality and care sectors. Gozitan employers report active difficulty filling roles year-round. Both the Malta Chamber and Gozo Business Chamber publicly flag labour shortages as the headline issue for member businesses.
Documentary fact. Gozo's unemployment rate sits at one of the lowest levels in NSO's series and Jobsplus reports record vacancies — particularly in tourism, hospitality and care sectors. Gozitan employers report active difficulty filling roles year-round. Both the Malta Chamber and Gozo Business Chamber publicly flag labour shortages as the headline issue for member businesses.
We tested Agius Saliba's claim against (1) NSO Malta Labour Force Survey regional breakdowns including Gozo, (2) Jobsplus Malta vacancy register data, (3) Malta Chamber and Gozo Business Chamber member-survey publications, and (4) Eurostat regional unemployment data.
True. NSO labour-force data shows Gozo's unemployment rate near historic lows since 2022, and Jobsplus's vacancy register has grown steadily across the period. The Malta Chamber and Gozo Business Chamber publicly flag labour shortages as the headline issue for member businesses, particularly in tourism, hospitality, agriculture and care. Even with cross-channel commuting from mainland Malta and TCN (Third Country National) labour bridges, Gozitan employers struggle to fill roles year-round. Limitations: 'biggest challenge' is qualitative and depends on which business-survey reading is cited — energy costs, regulatory burden and skills mismatch are also frequently named. But on the substantive 'labour shortages are real and pervasive in Gozo' point, the documentary record is unambiguous.
Is Gozo really facing labour shortages
AAS told the Castille rally: "l-akbar sfida għal min iħaddem anke fil-gżira Għawdxija tibqa' dik illi jsib biżżejjed ħaddiema" — the biggest challenge for employers, even on Gozo, remains finding enough workers. That's a claim about the structure of Gozo's labour market in 2026. The data backs it cleanly.
Gozo's labour market in numbers
Per NSO's Regional Tourism 2024 release and Labour Force Survey:
- 19,554 Gozo and Comino residents in full-time employment (2024) — up 5.9% on 2023.
- 68.5% of working Gozo residents are in the private sector; the rest in public administration, public-sector entities, or the broad public services.
- Q4 2024 national unemployment rate: 2.9%. Gozo's rate has historically run within ±1pp of the national figure since 2022 — meaning Gozo too is in the lowest unemployment band in the NSO time series.
- Q2 2025 unemployment: again 2.9%, holding stable through 2025.
By any standard reading, this is full employment. The classic structural definition (NAIRU) puts equilibrium unemployment at 4–5% in modern economies; Malta and Gozo are running well below that.
Where the shortages bite hardest on Gozo
Gozo's labour mix is more concentrated than mainland Malta's. NSO Regional Tourism 2024 and Gozo Business Chamber surveys flag four sectors as actively shortage-bound:
- Tourism and hospitality — peak-season shortfall is acute. 1.86 million visitors crossed to Gozo in 2024; 91.2% were day-trippers, but the 8.8% staying overnight need hotel staff, restaurant workers, and tour guides who increasingly aren't there in sufficient numbers.
- Care and health — Gozo Hospital and the community-care network face structural recruitment difficulty for nurses, carers, and support staff. Demographics make this worse: Gozo's population is older on average than mainland Malta's.
- Agriculture and agri-food — Gozo retains a meaningful agricultural sector (vines, vegetables, dairy, food production) but seasonal labour is increasingly hard to source.
- Trades and construction — like the rest of Malta, but the cross-channel commute makes Gozo less attractive to mainland-based workers.
Why Gozo specifically faces this harder
Three structural factors compound the shortage on Gozo above and beyond the mainland labour-market tightness:
- Internal migration — Younger Gozitans commute or relocate to Malta for higher-paid roles, especially in financial services, gaming, and tech. The cross-channel commute is workable but not all Gozitan residents do it daily.
- Tourism concentration — Tourism is a larger share of Gozo's economy than mainland Malta's, with much sharper seasonal swing. Peak-season demand collides with low local labour pool.
- TCN labour bridge gaps — Third-country national (TCN) labour, which fills mainland tourism roles, is slower to reach Gozo because of accommodation, ferry logistics, and lower visibility of Gozo employers in TCN recruitment chains.
- Demographic skew — Gozo's population is older on average than Malta's, with a smaller working-age share.
What about the Jobsplus vacancy register?
Jobsplus's vacancy data, while not broken out by region with full granularity in public summaries, has shown sustained record-high postings since 2022 in tourism, care, retail, and skilled trades — all sectors heavily represented in Gozo's economy. The Gozo Business Chamber's annual member surveys repeatedly identify labour shortage as the top concern, ahead of energy costs and regulatory burden.
So is the claim accurate?
Yes. Gozo's labour market is at full employment. Employers across tourism, hospitality, care, and agri-food are publicly flagging difficulty filling roles. Gozo Business Chamber surveys identify labour shortage as employers' #1 issue. NSO data confirms unemployment at decade-low levels.
Verdict: True.