Government plans to recruit one million civil servants

Government plans to recruit one million civil servants

Eva C. Komandjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government is planning to hire approximately one million new
civil servants over the next three years, mostly for the
education and medical sectors, to serve in remote areas across
the country.

Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Jusuf Kalla said on
Tuesday that the increase was consistent with population growth
and would provide better services to the public in those sectors.

"We have to improve the quality of the country's human
resources by offering better health services and better
education," Minister of Home Affairs Hari Sabarno said.

"Currently, we need about 512,000 medical workers and
teachers, but we will need more in the future as the population
grows," Jusuf Kalla said.

He added that he and his team were now preparing a report on
the new recruitment numbers, which should be ready within the
next two weeks.

State Minister for Administrative Reform Feisal Tamin said
that over 550,000 teachers and medical workers would retire in
the next five years.

The government's data also shows that right now, there are
3,541,961 state employees serving approximately 215 million
people in the country. They account for only 1.6 percent of the
total population.

"Our percentage is far behind other countries in Asia, such as
Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei Darussalam. Therefore, we want to
increase the number to at least 2 percent of the total population
in the next three years," said Feisal Tamin.

He added that in Malaysia, the number of civil servants
reaches 3.7 percent of the population, while in Brunei
Darussalam, it reaches almost 12 percent.

With a population growth rate of 1.5 percent per year, it is
predicted that in 2007, Indonesia will have nearly 230 million
citizens.

Two percent of the country's total population would mean
approximately 4.5 million civil servants.

This new policy contradicts the government's previous
statement that it would maintain zero growth in the number of
civil servants -- not recruiting more than the number of retired
employees, which another report puts at approximately 110,000
employees per year.

Earlier, the zero growth policy was applied to make civil
servants work more efficiently.

Feisal Tamin said that the recruitment process would be done
according to the government's national standards and by each
regional government under the autonomy law.

"Part time and non-permanent medical workers and teachers will
be prioritized in the recruitment process, but that does not mean
that they will be accepted directly," Feisal added.

Jusuf Kalla said that the government would finance the new
recruitment from the state budget but he did not want to
elaborate on a specific amount of money.