Labor retraining a must: Official

Ridwan Max Sijabat, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Indonesia is in need of competence-based training and retraining programs to improve competitiveness of its labor in the global market, government officials and businesspeople say.

Director general for research, development and information at the Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration Harry Heriawan Saleh said on Tuesday a national program to train and retrain workers was necessary since the majority of the country's workforce was both uneducated and unskilled.

"(Unskilled) workers in inefficient firms have to improve their competence in the face of competition with expatriates (soon) to enter domestic labor market. Those seeking employment overseas need to meet international standards, otherwise they will lose to competitors from the Philippines, Vietnam, India and Bangladesh," Harry said.

The education ministry needed to review the national curriculum and link schools with labor markets to produce graduates whose diplomas were internationally certified, he said.

The free trade in services under the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (AFTA) is scheduled to be implemented in the region next year.

Indonesia will then be required to open its labor market in seven sectors after a World Trade Organization ministerial meeting scheduled for December in Hong Kong. The sectors are professional occupations, mining, maritime, education, construction, finance and health.

Separately, labor exporters blamed the government's failure to prioritize human resource development for the country's unreadiness for the freer trade in labor.

Chairman of the Indonesian Association of Labor Exporters (Apjati) Husein Alaydrus and Saleh Alwaini, president of PT Inti Binawan, said business community in the country was surprised by the government's ignorance of the country's low economic competitiveness in the global market.

"The government apparently does not care about the low quality of the country's human resources. Indonesia is a home to not only inefficient companies but also to unskilled and low-skilled workers," Husein said.

He said to survive the global labor market, the government had no choice but to make a huge investment in labor training programs that so far had been entrusted to the private sector.

"A revolutionary change in the education and training sectors must be initiated. The newly established National Agency for the Certification of Professions has to begin operating and a national labor bourse must be set up to provide a database on workers' competence and to supply labor required at home and overseas," he said.

Husein and Saleh criticized Manpower and Transmigration Minister Fahmi Idris for doing nothing after nine months in office, with freed up labor markets just around the corner.

"Even worse, the issue of illegal immigrants in Malaysia has not been handled properly, the labor exports to Saudi Arabia remain suspended and the labor supply to Taiwan is still in trouble," Saleh said.

The pair urged the government to begin lobbying countries where Indonesia had the potential to export labor to develop mutual agreements that recognized domestic workers' competence.