Malta’s OSH Pulse 2025 figures report that 83% of workers use at least one of the digital technologies specified in the survey in their main job.
It is an important number.
But perhaps the more interesting question begins with the other 17%.
The figure does not mean that 17% of Malta’s workers are untouched by digitalisation. Nor does it mean that they were excluded from the survey.
It means that they reported using none of the technologies captured by that particular measure.
That distinction matters.
The technologies specified by OSH Pulse include internet-connected portable devices, desktop computers, AI-powered software and tools, wearable devices, intelligent machines and interactive robots.
Across the EU27, 90% of workers reported using at least one of the listed technologies.
Malta’s reported 83% therefore sits seven percentage points below that European figure.
But the remaining 17% raises a different question.
What does the measure not tell us?
A worker can experience digital transformation without personally using one of the technologies captured by a particular survey question.
Technology may influence how their work is allocated, scheduled, monitored or evaluated. It may change the systems surrounding their job, the decisions made about their work, the skills increasingly expected of them or the organisation in which they operate.
Alternatively, some workers may genuinely have very limited direct exposure to digital technology.
Those are very different realities.
The headline statistic alone cannot distinguish between them.
And that is precisely why the distinction matters.
Two questions, not one
The 83% figure invites one question:
Why does Malta report lower use of the specified workplace digital technologies than the EU27 average?
The remaining 17% invites another:
What is the experience of digital change among workers who report using none of those technologies in their main job?
Those questions should not be collapsed into a single assumption about digital engagement.
One concerns Malta’s comparative position. The other concerns what our measurement allows us to understand about a significant part of the workforce. Both deserve attention.
Measurement shapes what becomes visible
This is not a criticism of OSH Pulse. Every survey instrument has boundaries. It must decide what to ask, how to define it and what can reasonably be measured.
The problem begins when the boundary of a measure becomes the boundary of our thinking.
If a statistic tells us that 83% of workers use at least one specified technology, we should not silently transform that into the broader claim that 83% of workers are “digitally engaged”. Those are not necessarily the same thing.
And if we want to understand Malta’s readiness for technological change, the distinction becomes consequential.
Policy, investment, workforce development and organisational decisions increasingly depend on our ability to understand who is participating in the digital transition, how they are participating and who may require different forms of support.
A headline percentage cannot answer all of those questions.
What should happen next?
Future national data collection should deliberately examine the workers sitting behind that remaining 17%.
What technologies do they actually encounter? How is technology changing their work even where they do not use it directly? What occupations and sectors are represented? What skills do they have? What prevents greater participation where participation would be beneficial?
And, importantly, do they need to become more digitally engaged at all—or are we assuming that greater digitalisation is automatically the desired outcome?
That last question matters too.
The purpose of better measurement should not be to force every worker towards a predetermined technological destination. It should be to understand the human reality well enough to make informed choices about what comes next.
Because stewardship begins not with the people our indicators can already see clearly.
It begins by asking who remains difficult to see — and why.
Source: EU-OSHA — OSH Pulse 2025 ↗