Painters and plasterers form the bulk of the construction industry workers in Malta while cast metal workers and insulation material installers are the hardest to find. However, there are signs of an ageing workforce as the number of those under 25 years possessing skills to work in the construction industry account to just 17%.

In total this sector, which in the last decade has boomed, incorporates around 69,000 workers or 23.6% of the population of whom 11,000 are non-Maltese. Respondents, could chose more than one category.

This information stems from the preliminary findings of the Malta Skills Survey carried out last year.  This exercise, the first of its kind in Malta, was carried out among 130,000 individuals aged between 15 and 64 years, living in private households. The sample included Maltese citizens residing in Malta and non-Maltese citizens were only included if they had lived in Malta for at least five years prior to the survey. Hence, in sectors like construction the number of non-Maltese might be underrepresented in this survey.

It transpires that 16.9% of the respondents said they can work as painters, with the majority being males. This figure translates to 49,381 of whom 8,271 are non-Maltese. Significantly, the proportion of painters out of the entire non-Maltese population was 20.4%, meaning that one in five does this job.

The second-most popular trade in the construction industry is plastering with 10.5%, with all the respondents which amounts to 30,717 of whom 25,593 are Maltese.

Plumbers ranked as the third most popular skill in construction with 23,188 saying they possessed this skill.

Builders – a term which incorporates brick laying, roofing skills, and installing metal and wooden structures – accounted to just 7.1%  of those who declared being qualified in the construction Industry. This cohort amounted to 20,730 workers of whom 3,920 were non-Maltese and ranked in fifth place overall.

Welding, soldering or brazing ranked fourth with 21,592 workers, while the number of tile layers totalled 16,068.

The least number of tradesman were those specialising in making moulds and casts who totalled 7,125 followed by installers of ventilation and air conditioning equipment (7,755).

A deeper analysis of the survey exposed quite a worrying trend, whereby it confirms that construction is no longer attracting Maltese workers. This trend emerges from the fact that the largest cohort of workers are those between 45 to 64  and 25 to 44 years who total 60,000. In contrast those under 25 years amount to just 7,200. This demographic development is arguably coming to the fore, through the ever-increasing reliance of third country nationals in the construction industry.