Acknowledge poor labor conditions: Scholar

JAKARTA (JP): A respected demographer urged the government yesterday to acknowledge Indonesia's less favorable labor conditions as the first step to improving them.

Aris Ananta of the University of Indonesia said only if the government acknowledges the disadvantages would conditions be improved.

Aris said one problem is that the bulk of the Indonesian workforce is unskilled -- a condition that has prompted doubts about Indonesia's ability to compete in the world market when world trade is liberalized.

Liberalization will allow free flow of workers from one country to another, but would not bring foreign exchange since migrants were not tourists, he said.

"We should consider how migration will improve workers' livelihoods," he said.

Addressing a two-day seminar at the University of Indonesia's School of Economics entitled Accelerating human resources quality to face the year 2003 and 2020, Aris called on the government to change their interpretation of unemployment rate statistics.

"Developing countries tend to hide their unemployment rate and labor conditions when these shortcomings could actually be a tool to reflect and improve," Aris said.

According to Aris, the unemployment rate does not reflect a country's economic. If the concern is to eradicate poverty, then income distribution, productivity and welfare should be the main considerations, he said.

"Poor people cannot afford to be unemployed," Aris said, adding that income should not be the sole economic measure because many people work in the informal sector.

According to 1990 official figures, Indonesia's unemployment rate was 3 percent.

By the year 2005, when population is about 223 million, the rate is predicted to reach 5 percent and to rise to at least 8 percent from year 2020 to naturally follow population increases when the population is 254 million.

"People of working age will have more working options because they will be more educated and generally more prosperous," he said.

Other speakers included Minister of Population/Chairman of the National Family Planning Board Haryono Suyono, Minister of Education and Culture Wardiman Djojonegoro and Muh. Budyatna, dean of the School of Social and Political Science at the University of Indonesia.

Wardiman said Indonesia could improve the quality of its human resources by focusing on the link-and-match concept of education, which links educational training programs to projected employment needs.

"We can no longer think only of education for the sake of education but we must think about how to gear education in ways that will meet market demand," Wardiman said.

Umar Kayam from the University of Gadjah Mada, however, criticized Wardiman's link-and-match concept.

"The link and match concept is too technical, if not technocratic, an approach and only useful as a stop gap in industrialized societies," Kayam said.

Kayam said people needed to stand still and ponder the meaning of globalization before hastily committing to it.

"We have been left out for quite a while anyway," he said, quoting Mahatma Gandhi's dictum of 'high thinking, plain living.' (06)