Maltese workers spend an average of 26 minutes in commuting

Workers in Malta spent an average of 26 minutes travelling from home to work, excluding detours or any extra time needed for other purposes such as grocery shopping or taking children to school, a study published by the NSO shows.

Results showed that, before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, one third of employed persons at a national level
had a one-way commuting time ranging from 15 to 29 minutes. Similarly, 30.7 per cent of all workers in the EU-28
fell within the same category. The second highest share of workers, both in Malta and the EU-28, took between one
and 14 minutes to get from home to work (23.0 and 26.8 per cent respectively).

A further 8.5 per cent of employed persons had a commuting time ranging from 45 to 59 minutes, 2.6 percentage points higher than the EU-28 average of 5.9 per cent.

Employment characteristics such as a person’s type of employment and professional status had a bearing on
commuting time. Persons who were employed on a part-time basis took, on average, 23 minutes to arrive to work.
That was three minutes less than full-timers. This was evident for both males and females (22 and 24 minutes
respectively).

Commuting time for self-employed persons, who are usually more flexible at their place of work, was on average 19
minutes or eight minutes less than the average commuting time of employees.