Malta’s economy grew by 4.0% in 2025, almost three times the euro area’s 1.4%, according to PwC Malta’s spring economic update. Look one level down and the picture changes. Output per worker grew by only 1.4%, and GDP per head by 1.6%. Most of the growth came from adding more people to the workforce, not from each job producing more.

That gap matters to anyone who works here, because over time pay follows what a job produces.

Spain shows where that road can lead

Euronews reports, citing the European Commission’s country report, that Spanish GDP grew by 2.8% in 2025 and employment by 2.6%. Yet more than 82% of the jobs created were in low-productivity activities. Hourly productivity has improved since 2019, but productivity per employee has stayed virtually flat, and analysts cited by Euronews name that as one of the main reasons wage growth there has been limited. With Spanish inflation at 5% in September, a flat wage is quietly a falling one.

Where Malta stands

Malta is not Spain, and two numbers show it. Inflation here was an estimated 2.4% in September, below the euro area’s 3.8%, according to Eurostat’s flash estimate, so prices are eating into pay more slowly. And output per worker was still rising fast until recently, by 5% in 2024.

But the slowdown is real. EY Malta reports that real output per hour worked fell by 0.9% in 2025. PwC puts output per worker at about €67,000, against €83,000 across the euro area. Full-time employment, meanwhile, grew by 73% between 2015 and 2025, according to Jobsplus.

Not every job has the same ceiling

The gap between sectors is where the choice lies. PwC estimates output per worker at about €162,000 in ICT, €93,000 in professional services and €76,000 in finance, with wholesale and retail, construction and the public sector at the lower end. For anyone weighing up their next move, the sector matters as much as today’s salary. A role in a high-output sector, or one that builds the skills those sectors pay for, has more room to grow.

Malta will keep posting growth figures that look healthy next to the rest of Europe. The number worth watching is output per worker, because that is the one your payslip follows over time.