Watch: Joseph Muscat Is ‘Disgusted’ By Political Rhetoric On Foreign Workers
Joseph Muscat recently expressed his disgust at the ongoing local political rhetoric with regards to foreign workers.
“It’s not a zero-sum game. These issues are highly sensitive, and one of my current disappointments—if not disgust—with local politics is that it has devolved into a simplistic, black-and-white discussion,” Muscat said during an interview on Emanuel Cuschieri’s Smash Radio show.
“It disgusts me to tell you the truth.”
Muscat has faced heavy criticism for the way the foreign population in Malta increased significantly during his term as Prime Minister.
However, he defended his strategy and said a shift towards a “quality economy” invariably means the country will need to attract more foreign workers to take up the jobs the Maltese aren’t willing to do.
“We still need people to clean our toilets and deliver food to us if we don’t have a chance to cook, but if my children are all doctors, accountants, lawyers and nurses, who will do these jobs?”
“We must either renounce them entirely or give them to people who are ready to work them, and those are foreign workers who come from situations where this sort of job is much better than the situation in their home country.
“I’m not ashamed to say that I want Maltese people to take up the best jobs, but when there aren’t enough Maltese to fill up certain jobs, foreign workers should take them up.”
“Nowadays everyone seems to have fallen for the idea that it’s fine to blame foreigners for everything that’s wrong in the country. It’s easy to say this but then you have a responsibility to make people aware of these points, because right now no one is mentioning them or contradicting them.”
Muscat went on to say that if Malta reaches a situation where there is enough work for every Maltese citizen but not for foreign workers, it will become a country “tal-qamel”.
“There will be so much hunger that qualified engineers will end up working as cab drivers, as is the case for some foreign cab drivers currently working in Malta.”
“This is one of the largest companies in Malta, that employs hundreds of Maltese and foreign workers. They told me that the foreign workers saved the jobs of the Maltese people, because they needed to expand their operations by 100 people and couldn’t find Maltese workers. If they were unable to fill up those positions, they would have left Malta entirely, which means those 100 foreign workers saved several Maltese jobs.”
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