Costs Will Be Passed To Consumers If COLA Reaches €10, Maltese Businesses Warn
The majority of Maltese businesses expect to increase their prices to cope with the upcoming cost of living adjustment, which is set to reach a record-high of around €10 a week.
A survey by the Malta Employers Association among 330 employers, reflecting around 400 companies, found that only 28% expect to absorb the costs of a €10 COLA themselves.
Half of them will partially increase their prices to cover the increase in cost, while 22% will pass the entire cost to consumers.
Employers in professional services industries (18%) are the least likely to absorb the costs themselves, followed by wholesale and retail (21%) and hospitality and tourism (22%).
Conversely, businesses in the export industry are the most likely to absorb the costs themselves (37%), followed by those in the domestic economy (27%).
The Malta Employers Association has called for COLA to be capped at a maximum of €6 and a minimum of €2.50 for the next five years.
Set through a mechanism that was established in the early 1990s following an agreement by social partners, the COLA has so far fluctuated between a low of 58c a week (2015) and a high of €5.82 a week (2010).
However, as a result of the ongoing global cost of living crisis, it is now set to shoot up to over €10 a week.
Do you think the COLA should be capped at maximum and minimum levels?
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