While this may be partly attributed to cultural barriers and the traditional family values embraced in Malta, our experience with inactive females is that their major barrier to work is also attributable to their social role as primary care-givers in their family for children, older people and disabled persons.

On the other hand, today's economic climate and labour market pressures demand increasing numbers of people to enter the workplace. As a result, encouraging more inactive individuals to enter the labour market is becoming an ever growing necessity.

Over recent years, a number of measures have been implemented with the aim of increasing the labour market participation of target groups which typically encounter a number of barriers in accessing the labour market.

The Work Programme Initiative, run by KPMG on behalf of Jobsplus, is one of the main measures targeted at unemployed and inactive individuals, which provides training and upskilling opportunities for adults.

This initiative is a 3 month journey whereby we first get to know you, than together with our in-house trainers and continuous supportive staff we ensure you revitalise the skills necessary in order to tackle today's employment market, thus bridging the skills gap needed, which would lead you to potentially finding a suitable career opportunity.

While we understand that each and every individual who decides to embark on this journey has their own barriers hindering their employment which need to be conquered, we have ensured that a number of measures are in place in order provide you with the smoothest of pathways.

Such initiatives include having in-house career guidance professionals; empowering and instilling in the participants the confidence and motivation needed to re-enter the labour market; instilling the notion that investing in one's skills is a lifelong process.

We are therefore encouraging anyone who is willing to get back to work, to get in touch with us and enrol in the Work Programme Initiative, thus making your return into employment a far simpler process. We will ensure that we will provide a fully supportive coaching and mentoring system which is completely free of charge.