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.