House backs labor export suspension

House backs labor export suspension

Ridwan Max Sijabat, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government's decision to temporarily stop sending workers
overseas won the full support of the House of Representatives,
which said the moratorium was essential so as to improve the
quality of jobseekers despite the increasing demand for
Indonesian workers abroad.

But it has elicited skepticism from labor exporters as well as
government officials because of the absence of concrete steps to
improve the quality of the workers being sent overseas.

House Deputy Speaker Muhaimin Iskandar and members of the
House labor and social affairs commission gave their support to
the government's decision to suspend labor exports for the time
being due to the widespread abuse of Indonesian workers overseas
and the rampant extortion of them at home.

According to Muhaimin and the House commission, the temporary
suspension would give time for all sides, especially the Ministry
of Manpower and Transmigration and labor suppliers, to train
workers before they were sent abroad.

The government has decided to suspend labor exports until
March due to the Iraq crisis and the poor situation of Indonesian
workers in the Asia-Pacific region, including Hong Kong, Taiwan
and Malaysia.

However, Minister of Manpower and Transmigration Jacob Nuwa
Wea conceded he was pessimistic that Indonesia would be able to
improve the quality of workers in only one month. Besides, the
temporary suspension would worsen the unemployment problem at
home.

He said his ministry was responsible for training workers and
job-seekers, but almost all of the 160 training centers spread
across the country were now managed by regencies and
municipalities as required under the 1999 regional autonomy law.

"The 154 training centers that were handed over to the local
governments have yet to function optimally. Most of them are
closed because of financial problems and most of their
instructors have retired or been transferred to other sections in
the local administrations," he explained, saying he no longer had
the authority to manage human resources in the training centers.

He said it was impossible right now to order labor exporters
to train workers because almost 80 percent of labor exporters
lacked training centers and were unprofessional.

He acknowledged that the demand for Indonesian workers,
especially healthcare workers and machine operators, had been
increasing, but Indonesia could not meet the market demand due to
the low quality of Indonesian workers.

"To me, the curricula at all educational levels and the
national education system itself must be reviewed and changed to
meet the labor market's demands. We need nursing academies to
produce professional nurses with communication skills in a
foreign language. We also need machine operators with a good
command of a foreign language," he said.

Joko Sungkono, operations director for state-owned insurance
company PT Jamsostek, expressed his deep concern over the
continuing high number of lay-offs, saying the government's
decision to impose a moratorium on labor exports would worsen the
unemployment problem at home.

He said that more than 550,000 workers were dismissed in 2002,
many of whom remained jobless, while others had entered the
informal sector.

He explained that PT Jamsostek was paying benefits to an
additional 2,000 dismissed workers every day. Under a 1997
ministerial decree, laid-off workers have a right to some Rp
2,000,000 in financial assistance to allow them to seek other
jobs.

Yunus Yamani, a labor observer, called on the government to
stop labor exports for at least one year to make the necessary
preparations for the provision of proper training and to make
labor exporters more professional.

"What is needed is for skilled workers and professionals to be
sent overseas in order to improve Indonesia's bargaining power
and foreign exchange earnings from the sector," he said, citing
that the number of Indonesian workers employed overseas had
reached four million but the government's earnings from the
sector only amounted to US$1 billion per year.