Between Tuesday 27th April and Thursday 30th April, EMCS conducted the third Market Research on COVID-19 in Malta commissioned by The Times of Malta. In total 524 individuals aged 18 and over were interviewed, with data being representative of the local population in terms of gender, age (18 and over) and location of residence with a margin of error of +/- 3.4% at 95% confidence interval.
The research has evidenced that the Maltese think that government is handling the COVID-19 situation well, both in terms of the health situation and the economic one, though they have stronger positive views to how Government is handling the health situation (94% positive views as opposed to 67% positive views).
Notwithstanding, the fact that only 9% said that the government is handling the economic situation poorly, 78% said that they expect government to come out with more financial assistance to support the economy and a total of 6% of the population indicated being unemployed.
Overall, individuals are not concerned of losing their job following the COVID-19 outbreak with only 11% indicated being fearful. There are variances in responses between those working in the private sector as opposed to those in the public sector. 83% of those in the public sector are not fearful (with 78% indicating not fearful at all). Conversely, 63% of those in the private sector indicated not being fearful, of which only 15% that were not fearful at all. 15% of the private sector are fearful (as opposed to 5% of the public sector) with the rest expressing neutral views (22%). While this question analyses respondents’ current concerns, in the previous study carried 2 weeks before, this question was forward looking, with respondents asked to indicate their concern to losing their job in the coming 3 months and 6 months. Then 24% and 29% had indicated to be concerned.
62% of respondents indicated that their income had remained stable over the past month. Conversely, 33% indicated that their income had decreased (of these, 14% indicated that it had decreased considerably while 19% indicated that it had slightly decreased). A review of responses among those that indicated a decline evidences that a higher percentage were employed in the private sector.
57% of those in employment said that they would be willing to get a wage cut to help secure their job. The chart below shows the % wage cut of respondents are willing to forgo on their current pay with the majority (83%) willing to forgo under 10%.
