The European Commission has said that the European population is shrinking and ageing. The result is a decrease in the number of suitably qualified people available on the job market.

The EC said that in a globalised economy, Europe needs high-quality products and services to keep ahead of its competitors. At the same time, businesses face the challenge of ever more complex technologies.

Companies must broaden their employee base. Making better use of the female talent pool is a promising approach. Statistics have repeatedly shown that the labour force potential of women is not being adequately utilised.

To ensure its success, every company needs to recruit skilled employees. Especially in times when businesses are challenged by a lack of well trained workers, they need to seize every opportunity to uncover hidden labour market potential.

This is the reason that the EC launched the ‘Equality Pays Off’ initiative. The aim is to help companies achieve sustainable business success by gaining access to untapped female talent.

Women across the European Union earn on average 16.2% less than men and although the pay difference is narrowing, that’s mainly due to the drop in men’s pay caused by the recession. However, there is a solid “business case” for equal pay.

The unadjusted gender pay gap in Malta is below the EU-27 average. In Malta, women earned 6.1% less than men in 2010 (EU-27: -16.4%).

The general participation rate of women in the Maltese labour market equals 41% and is significantly below the EU average (58.5%) – the share of women actively looking for work (7.1%) is significantly below the EU average (9.8%).

The rate of women working part-time (25.5%) is significantly below the EU average (31.6%) – in Malta, the average part-time hours worked per week by women (21.3%) are slightly above the EU average (20.2%).

College/university (tertiary education) attainment of women equals 14.1% and is significantly below the EU average (24.8%) – in addition, high school students generally choose gender typical fields of study.

Nevertheless, in Malta the percentage rate of young women studying in the fields of science, mathematics and computing is significantly above the EU average (47.1% vs. 37.6%).

The under-/overrepresentation of women and men in occupations or sectors is pronounced in Malta as well as in the EU-27 – it is necessary to motivate graduates to enter gender atypical sectors and occupations.

The under-/overrepresentation of women and men in hierarchical levels prevails – the proportion of women on supervisory boards (3%) is dramatically below the EU average (14%); the rate of women in management positions, however, has increased by 3 pp since 2003 and is significantly below the EU average (20% vs. 33%).

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