Timber, textile sectors suffer massive job losses<\/p>\n
Zakki P. Hakim, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta<\/p>\n
The Central Statistics Agency (BPS)'s recent labor survey has
\nrevealed that the wood and textile weaving industries have lost
\nabout 500,000 and 300,000 jobs respectively last year.<\/p>\n
The two industries were the main contributors to the shrinking
\ntotal number of jobs in the country's manufacturing sector, which
\ndropped from 11.50 million in 2003 to 11.07 million last year,
\naccording to the 2004 National Labor Force Survey (Sakernas).<\/p>\n
Head of the BPS workforce sub-directorate Aden Gultom said
\nthat wood industries, in which the number of jobs dropped to 1.1
\nmillion last year from 1.6 million in 2003, suffered from the
\nchronic illegal logging problem in Indonesia.<\/p>\n
\"Industry players could have been reducing their activities to
\nanticipate government measures to curb illegal logging,\" he told
\nThe Jakarta Post on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Industry players had said last month that raw materials had
\nbecome in short supply as the government intensified measures
\nagainst illegal logging.<\/p>\n
Indonesian Forestry Society (MPI) chairman Sudrajat DP said
\nafter years of misconduct, it was hard for manufacturers to
\ndetermine whether a forest product was legal or not.<\/p>\n
Consequently, many manufacturers were trapped into acquiring
\nillegal products and could not use them as the authorities forbid
\nthem to do so, he said.<\/p>\n
According to Sudrajat, about two-thirds of the country's 115
\nwood-based industries had collapsed, mostly due to Indonesia's
\nhigh cost economy and aging machinery, and at the same time they
\ncould not compete against more efficient China and Malaysia.<\/p>\n
The industry has complained that smugglers take Indonesian
\nlogs and sell it cheaply to similar industries abroad. In
\ncontrast, prices of the same raw materials at home becomes
\nexpensive due to the decreasing quota.<\/p>\n
The country saw its wood products exports fall from US$3.28
\nbillion in 2003 to $3.17 billion last year, which accounts for
\nabout 6 percent of Indonesia's total non-oil and gas exports.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, although textiles remained the country's top export
\ncommodity, reaching $7.60 billion last year, the sector also had
\nto bear massive job losses.<\/p>\n
Aden said jobs in the textile weaving industry were reduced to
\n1.1 million last year from 1.4 million the previous year.<\/p>\n
The country's textile industry has been struggling to overcome
\nproblems with aging machinery, and had received minimal support
\nfrom local banks. The government has been trying to convince
\nbanks that the sector was bankable, despite the textile sector's
\nimage as a sunset industry.<\/p>\n
Industry players, however, admitted that they were facing
\ntougher competition from better prepared China and India, while
\nthey become less competitive due to, among other things,
\nunfavorable labor regulations.<\/p>\n
Separately, National Development Planning Board (Bappenas)
\nchairwoman Sri Mulyani Indrawati said the overall manufacturing
\nsector had yet to regain its past role in absorbing excess
\nworkers from other sectors, such as agriculture, due to rigid
\nlabor regulations.<\/p>\n
\"Our labor policies haven't changed,\" she told the Post.<\/p>\n
The agriculture sector, meanwhile, lost almost three million
\njobs last year mostly in food crops and horticulture.<\/p>\n
But Aden said the trade and construction sectors could have
\nabsorbed excess workers from the agriculture and manufacturing
\nsectors.<\/p>\n
The trade sector absorbed an additional 600,000 vendors and
\n700,000 itinerate vendors to reach 14.1 million and 2.7 million
\nrespectively last year.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, housing projects employed 4.2 million construction
\nworkers last year, providing new 400,000 jobs compared to the
\nprevious year.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/timber-textile-sectors-suffer-massive-job-losses-1447893297",
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"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
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