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.