Dozens of skilled workers sent abroad

Dozens of skilled workers sent abroad

Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Never traveling far from his hometown Jakarta, Nurcholis could
not conceal his excitement over the prospect of working in Italy.

"I am a little bit scared as I will be far from home ... but
my family give me their support," the 23-year-old told The
Jakarta Post on the sidelines of a ceremony to officially send
him and 62 others graduates of the Sahid Institute of Tourism to
Italy on Tuesday.

Nurcholis said that as the third in a family of nine siblings,
he had to do something to help his parents finance his younger
brothers and sisters to continue their education.

"As a Betawi (native Jakartan) family, we can no longer depend
on the land inherited from my ancestors. It will be all gone
soon. With my salary I hope I can help to support our family," he
said.

Nurcholis and others will work as crew members for Italian
cruise ship company Costa Crociere, which serves the America and
Europe routes.

They are the first group of around 2,000 Indonesian skilled
workers to be recruited by the company in four years.

Costa Crociere, part of the Carnival Corporation Group, the
largest cruise ship company in the world, signed a memorandum of
understanding (MOU) with the Sahid, the oldest tourism institute
in the capital, late last year to enable the institute to send at
least 300 graduates annually.

Sahid Institute of Tourism rector Yohannes Sulistiadi said
that all of the graduates would be placed in an apprentice
program for eight months and be paid around US$400 as a monthly
basic salary before being hired as permanent employees with a
basic salary of over $750.

"In addition, they will get tips amounting to double their
salary each month. But they have to show good performance to be
able to become a permanent employee," he said.

Yohannes said that another 80 graduates would be sent to Italy
in September.

Earlier, Costa Crociere announced that it already employed
1,000 Indonesians.

Sahid Group's vice president Nugroho B. Sukamdani said that
the company was willing to hire more Indonesians as they were
very satisfied with Indonesian workers' attitude.

"Indonesians have a better attitude and work harder. We just
need to work on our language proficiency and fighting spirit.
Sahid's training programs aim at addressing these weaknesses," he
said.

Nugroho said that Sahid is now on the brink of signing another
MOU with a Dutch hotel chain to send around 150 graduates to
Netherlands, while adding that several big cruise companies and
hotels were next on the plan.

According to recent research, the cruise industry needs over
150,000 ship personnel while the shipping and cargo industry
requires around 600,000 personnel.

Around one third of the demand is filled by the Philippines,
while Indonesia has only around 30,000 sailors in these
industries.

The Philippines pulls in around $20 billion in foreign
exchange remittances per year from exporting skilled labor while
Indonesia only got around $5 billion over the past three years.

According the Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration, only 25
percent of the country's 2.2 million overseas workers are
categorized as skilled.