The first striking fact when looking at the top of the list is that the contenders are either very poor countries with very low wages, such as Bangladesh and The Congo, or countries with a high percentage of low-paid immigrant workers, such as the UAE and Malta.

Malta is home to 525,285 Maltese and over 100,000 foreign residents, but experienced significant migration waves between 1948-1967, with some 30% of the population leaving for Australia, Canada, the US and the UK.

It’s estimated at least 420,000 Maltese are living abroad, as many as live in the country itself.

According to NSO figures Malta’s population increased by over 100,000 in the past 10 years.

More than one in five residents were foreign, with 115,449 non-Maltese persons residing in Malta on Census Day – an increase of more than five times in the share of foreigners since 2011.

These figures seem to signify that the really hard workers are the migrant population in Malta.

Despite some expats receiving higher than average wages, a lot of the migrant workers are imported for manual labour jobs, which pay minimum wage with many workers claiming that the agencies that bring them take a good chunk of their wages for travel, visa, rent, etc.

Many workers come from third world countries and they try to make as much money as they can so they can help their families. The precarious work conditions and high rents experienced by these workers have sometimes been described as modern-day slavery.

This is indeed a dubious honour and labour conditions should be examined more closely to make sure that we don’t have the worst conditions in the world.

Do you feel like Malta is the hardest working country in the world?