Govt has enough money to train workers: Exporters

Ridwan Max Sijabat, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Labor exporters are urging the government to utilize billions of dollars collected from labor exports and foreign workers to finance training and retraining programs that Indonesian workers need to compete in the global labor market.

The Association of Indonesian Labor Exporters (Himsataki) and the Association of Indonesian Labor Export Companies (Apjati) said the government has no reason not to invest in labor training since it had raised a huge amount of funds from labor exports and foreign workers.

"The government has a constitutional obligation to carry out a training program for workers either through schools or training centers. It has no excuse not to do so since it has collected a lot of money from workers sent overseas and from expatriates working in the country," Himsataki chairman Yunus Yamani said.

The government rakes in around US$1.5 billion annually in foreign exchange from around 2.5 million workers working overseas. Most of the workers are employed as housemaids with monthly salaries of US$100 to $250.

It also collects $100 monthly from every expatriate working in Indonesia.

Yunus was responding to the proposed training and retraining programs to improve workers' competitiveness in the global labor market under the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA).

The training and retraining programs were proposed since almost 70 percent of Indonesian workers are either uneducated or unskilled.

Apjati chairman Husein Alaydrus agreed and suggested that the House of Representatives and the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) investigate the funds collected from labor exports and foreign workers since the government had been not transparent about how it used the money.

"The government received $20 from every worker sent to Saudi Arabia in 1980 throughout 2000 and $15 for every worker employed overseas over the last five years. It also imposes a monthly levy of expatriates working here," Husein said.

According to Apjati data, Indonesia supplies around 15,000 workers monthly to Saudi Arabia and around 40,000 monthly to other foreign countries, while the number of expatriates in Indonesia varies from 13,000 to 35,000 per year.

The Labor Law allows the government to collect levies from labor exports and foreigners working locally in order to improve the quality of Indonesian workers.

Reliable sources at the Ministry of Manpower of Transmigration said all levies collected from workers were treated as nontaxable government revenue. The labor ministry receives 60 percent of the money, while the rest goes to the Ministry of Finance.

Separately, labor exporter Saleh Alwaini said the demand for Indonesian workers in the global market was high, but only for middle- and highly skilled workers, a market which the country cannot supply.

"Demand for Indonesian workers in the professional, health, tourist, transportation, agriculture and financial sectors is high. The main problem is that Indonesia has a surplus of workers but most lack the competence required by international standards," he said.

To fill the high demand, he suggested that the government start operating training centers and encourage the private sector to establish more training centers for both workers and job seekers.

He estimated that Indonesia could double labor exports to five million, which would earn the country around $10 billion in annual remittances, if the training and retraining programs worked optimally.