What Restructuring

The Malta Independent

What restructuring`

The sad news of layoffs and factory closures announced during the first week of the year underlines that real restructuring is not taking place.

It is in the normal course of things that as the economy develops some economic units fail to survive in the emerged environment. Other units can only survive if they become leaner and more competitive by shedding labour and reducing their unit cost of production.`

So what should be making news is not take this or that factory closed down, or this or that employer laid off workers to reduce the` work force in a struggle to survive. What should be making news is that the economy is not producing real productive outward looking employment at a much faster rate than jobs are being lost in other sectors that have passed their use by date.

What we should be worrying about is not that this or that factory closed or shed off labour, but why new employment opportunities are not being created. Why is our economy dependent on domestic demand for creation of jobs Why is it that we are still so dependent on infrastructure and building projects to keep our economy moving forward Is it feasible that unless we continue to over-develop these islands with dire consequences on` environmental standards and creating excess capacity which threatens long term economic viability, our economy will just jam and contract.

What we should be worrying about is that whilst unemployment is rising to socially dangerous levels, while new graduates are having to eat humble pie and accept employment conditions which insult the degree they worked so hard for, yet we are doing next to nothing to expose the serious over-employment we have in the public sector and which remains the main source of the chronic financial deficit which is mortgaging the economic future of this country.

Precious time and resources are` being wasted.` This government has no solutions.` It is not even attempting to pretend it has and is pinning all hope on` EU membership to` protect us from ourselves. As the perpetrators of the economic mess we are in they have no credentials to script serious economic regeneration plan. Politically they are not even able to acknowledge the problem let alone devise the solution.

So we are told that the structural deficit is being addressed when in fact it is widening. We are told that the economy is being liberalised just as monopolies are being created. Just take into account the charges being levied to get property searches ` the newest of all monopolies` given to private sector interest without competitive offers in an area where government could have easily used its own IT resources at MITTS to develop its own systems.

Just take into account the charges being levied on business by the banks using their dominant positions to take away the little bit that is given by the easing of monetary policy.

Restructuring is not being attempted let alone executed. As EU membership forces us to lift protection control we will unavoidably lose jobs at a time when we are not succeeding to create new ones. The government as usual will keep itself busy to dress make up on the underlying problems rather devising real even if not painless solutions.` Restructuring has not even started.