Bank workers wake up to nasty surprise of unemployment
By Aloysius Unditu and Johannes K. Simbolon
JAKARTA (JP): Eight-year-old Chandra, a banker's son, came down with a mysterious ailment last month.
His worried parents took him to the hospital several times, but nobody could identify his condition.
Finally, the elementary school student confessed that he could not sleep for three days after reading in the newspapers that his father's bank was one of those taken over by the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA), which was set up in January to right the country's wobbly banks.
"He said he was extremely worried that I would my lose job and have no money to feed the family," his father, who wanted to remain anonymous, told The Jakarta Post.
He lost his job when IBRA liquidated Bank Umum Nasional (BUN) along with Bank Dagang Nasional Indonesia (BDNI) and Bank Modern on Aug. 21.
Chandra only stopped worrying about the family's future after his father, who obtained a master's in business administration degree from the Philippines, landed a teaching job in an English course soon after he was dismissed.
He can also earn extra income by teaching on export-import affairs in another institution and writing on banking for newspapers.
The banking sector is among the hardest hit by the monetary crisis, which has battered the region and the country for more than a year.
In addition to the four on Aug. 21, the government liquidated 16 banks in November last year and another seven last April. The moves, aimed at restoring the country's banking industry to a healthy condition, threw tens of thousands of workers into the ranks of the unemployed.
Only a few have been lucky enough to find alternate jobs. Most appear desperate in facing the uncertainties that lie ahead and with no solution to the crisis in sight.
Employees of the 10 banks still under the supervision of IBRA are worried that the ax of redundancy will next fall on them.
The Federation of Indonesian Private Banks (Perbanas) has launched a program to steer the laid-off workers to banks which are designated by the government as relatively healthy -- Bank Bali, Bank Mashill, Bank Prima Ekspress, Bank Negara Indonesia, Bank Putra Multikarsa and Bank IFI.
But bankers say the available job opportunities are only for low-level front desk workers.
Struggle
"The first weeks after the liquidation were really hard days. I just didn't know what to do," said Kasto Ferianto, a manager of the South East Asia Bank, one of the 16 banks liquidated by the government last November.
"I'm lucky my wife also works at a private bank which was not liquidated. So our family did not have a severe financial problem."
Kasto, who received about Rp 35 million in severance pay in December last year, has tried to do everything over the past 10 months to kill time.
He tried his luck in land and property brokerage but quit because the income was too small.
He accepted an offer from a friend to manage a photocopy business in Rawamangun, East Jakarta, early this month.
Banking will not be part of his future again, he said.
"Banking jobs are boring. I'd better find a different job."
Some, but not all, of the liquidated banks have given severance pay to their employees.
According to the agreement between IBRA, the liquidated banks and the government, dismissed workers will get severance pay twice the amount received under "normal" conditions.
Gabriel Chanfarry, a former BUN manager, which has yet to provide severance pay to its about 3,500 workers nationwide, told the Post the amount was insufficient.
He said a university graduate with five years' work experience and an average basic salary of Rp 2 million per month (US$181) would receive an average Rp 20 million in severance pay, while high school graduates with five years of work experience and an average basic salary of Rp 500,000 per month were entitled to Rp 5 million.
"Managerial-level employees who remain jobless can perhaps live on their severance pay for 1.5 years, but lower-level workers can live on it for only a half year," Gabriel said.
People may resort to disruptive and undesirable actions in desperation once the severance pay starts to run out, he added.
Some bank owners have reportedly been generous in their severance pay allotments.
Bambang (not his real name), a former employee of BDNI, said bank owner Sjamsul Nursalim provided "more than enough" severance pay to the bank's 7,100 employees.
"Each employee gets an average Rp 50 million in compensation pay."
Bambang said employees in middle and upper positions did not have any difficulties in coping with the liquidation because other companies needed their expertise.
"I have found a new job in the accounting department in a forest concession company."
He stopped short of discussing the fate of BDNI tellers and marketing staff.