Govt just about to throw in towel on unemployment
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The government acknowledged on Friday it was desperately trying to get a handle on the country's rising unemployment problem, saying it was simply running out of ideas to create jobs for the three million new job seekers annually and the 40 million currently jobless.
Minister of Manpower and Transmigration Jacob Nuwa Wea said only 1.6 million job vacancies are available every year countrywide.
He admitted the government has no new or special strategies to tackle unemployment which rose to an astronomical 40 million people this year, except to send workers abroad and further explore domestic job opportunities in strategic sectors, like agroindustry, fishery and tourism.
"The government will continue focusing on two main strategies: sending more maids overseas and maximizing domestic sectors to create more vacancies," Jacob told reporters in Jakarta.
However, he was unable say what the government had planned to encourage the domestic sectors to create new jobs.
It certainly requires huge fresh money for the domestic sectors to survive or develop amid the prolonged economic crisis, and it is impossible to expect more foreign assistance due the global recession following the September terrorist attacks on the United States.
Experts said that to provide jobs for three million people annually, Indonesia must increase its economic growth from 3.5 percent to seven percent. However, the government has forecast that next year's economic growth will be four percent.
Jacob claimed the human labor exports are likely still the best alternative to reducing unemployment, saying overseas markets could recruit between three and four million workers every year.
Most of about 460,000 Indonesians currently employed in other countries, including Malaysia, Singapore, Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern nations, are unskilled workers, mostly serving as maids. However, they often have to risk human rights abuses by their employers, including physical and sexual assaults.
In addition they are often recruited by unscrupulous agents here who charge them exorbitant amounts of money as well as being regularly "asked" to pay certain "fees" to airport officials and others as they depart or return from overseas work assignments. All of these issues are obvious hindrances to encouraging workers to go overseas.
Jacob admitted that many Indonesians were not eligible for professional employment overseas due to their inadequate skills, and that the quality of Indonesian workers still lagged behind those from other ASEAN countries, particularly the Philippines.
The minister hopes a new labor bill, currently being deliberated at the House of Representatives, will give stronger legal protection to Indonesian workers overseas.
Jacob criticized the current education system for failing to provide adequate vocational skills for students to work after finishing their studies.
He also called on all relevant authorities to further empower the informal business sectors, including street vendors, which he said could absorb 65 percent of the country's work force.
He slammed the regency and provincial administrations over their moves to crack down on street vendors who were often blamed for causing disorder and disturbance in their cities.
"I don't agree with this. Don't evict them. The regional administrations should have provided special places for them to open stalls instead of just throwing them out," he said.
"We need to support them because they are able to make a living without government assistance," Jacob added.