Indonesian workers face gloomy prospects under AFTA

Indonesian workers face gloomy prospects under AFTA

Ridwan Max Sijabat, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Indonesia may not be able to immediately benefit from the opening
of the labor market in the Southeast Asian region next year due
to poor preparation and the low education of the majority of its
workers, experts have said.

More developed economies like Singapore and Malaysia will also
likely turn to the Philippines for low-skilled workers such as
housemaids and gardeners because Indonesia has not certified the
low-skilled professions to international standards.

"Most (low-skill) workers in Indonesia have no certified
competence because they are recruited and employed on the basis
of their education background and only a small group of workers
in health, legal, construction, tourism and maritime sectors are
included into the category of professionals with certified
competence," said Bomer Pasaribu, chairman of the Center for
Labor and Development Studies (CLDS), recently.

Bomer, who is also a former minister of manpower, said that
the Indonesian government had been too slow in making
preparations to anticipate the upcoming regional liberalization
drive as it had been concentrating on dealing with the economic
crisis at home.

The Asean Free Trade Agreement (AFTA) is due to take effect
next year, with all 10 member countries of the Association of
South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) opening up their labor markets
in 12 main sectors including communications, transportation,
education, health, finance and tourism.

Chief of the Center for Research, Development and Information
at the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry, Harry Heriawan
Saleh, said that seen from the labor perspective, the Indonesian
labor sector was not prepared to compete in the free trade era,
not only because its infrastructure and superstructure were not
prepared, but mainly because most workers do not have certified
competencies and skills.

"We have no accurate information or databases on labor
potentials in all sectors. We cannot calculate now the number of
workers we can export when AFTA is officially launched next
year," he said.

He added that workers were not prepared to go global because a
majority of them were poorly educated and unskilled.

Most workers were low-skilled and have poor education because
57 percent, or 52 million, of the country's 103 million workforce
education stopped at elementary school; 39 percent graduated from
junior or senior high school; and only 2.7 percent, or 2.45
million, graduated from university.

Mula Basa Hutabarat, secretary of the directorate general for
financial institutions at the Ministry of Finance, which
coordinated the service trade issue, said that trade and industry
associations have also contributed to the country's
unpreparedness to enter the free trade era because so far, only a
few associations have set standard competencies in their own
sectors.

"So far, only a few professional associations in the mining,
tourism, construction, maritime, health and information sectors
have drawn up their standard competencies complete with basic
salaries," he said.

He said that all 12 main sectors to be liberalized under AFTA
have now been asked to design job competencies for their
respective sectors, and certify them in accordance with national
and international standards.