Bank workers wake up to nasty surprise of unemployment

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.